I agree, the tempers are high when the bill hasn’t even been voted on by the House and Senate yet.
But I am still asking questions that I hope legal experts can answer. This is an appropriation bill. It is funding. People are saying its amnesty and has provisions for letting minors or families with come in without detention. That would seem to be a bill killer if true, but my question is, can Congress combine LAW with appropriation at all? The process, which is SNAFU I agree, I thought was you passed law and/or authorization, and that was separate for appropriation.
From the interwebz: Authorization vs Appropriation. Authorization laws have two basic purposes. They establish, continue, or modify federal programs, and they are a prerequisite under House and Senate rules (and sometimes under statute) for the Congress to appropriate budget authority for programs.
So I don’t think this can be anything but a budget appropriation, but I ask legal folks to clarify for simple engineers like me.
Reports on Twitter say Senate just passed it. WTH it is.
My understanding is the same as your’s. The rules in this appropriation bill expire on Sept. 30, 2019 and are only tied to the funding within it. So if Trump does not use the fencing money the bill has in it during that time nothing in it would apply to his Emergency Declaration. It only applies to the 55 miles they are paying for. There are many loopholes for Trump IMHO...