After President Trump announced that he would declare a national emergency to construct a barrier on the U.S.-Mexico border, House Democrats quickly countered by vowing to derail the effort and are planning a vote this week.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer stated that Senate Democrats would also introduce a companion resolution to block Trump.

To support their argument to reinforce or construct more border barriers, Republicans point to the threat from MS-13 street gangs and the drug cartels for causing rape, human trafficking, violence and exploitation.

Democrats claim that the border crisis is something politically manufactured by the president.

Caught in the middle are the migrants streaming to the border. While Mexico dominates the border reporting, the great majority of immigrants are from dysfunctional countries in Central America.

Panama is plagued by violence, and internal strife threatens people in Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. Violence and death have turned these countries into war zones.

It’s hard to blame immigrant families for trying to flee the horror and atrocities in their homelands. Many are destitute and see America as the ideal land of opportunity. Randy Capps, the director of research for U.S. programs for the Migration Policy Institute, says that most Central Americans who make the dangerous trek to this country actually want to get caught or turn themselves in and apply for asylum.

Right-wing conservatives have been sounding the alarm. Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, a retired Air Force brigadier general and member of the House Homeland Security and Armed Services Committees, has stated that the partisan political divide has made it difficult to find common ground and obscures the large issue of protecting Americans from attack. Bacon warns that violent extremist organizations like the Islamic State remain steadfast in their desire to attack our country, and foreign fighters are a threat to continue their jihad or physical “caliphate” within our borders.

In recent testimony before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen confirmed that written materials seized from the Islamic State explicitly urge its followers to enter into this country through the Southwest border. Nielsen added that each day the U.S. is tracking 15 suspected terrorists either traveling or planning to travel to the U.S.

Even regional partners like Guatemala confirm they have detained dozens of people of Middle East origin on their way to the U.S. using falsified travel documents.

The claim from those on the left that the president has manufactured a crisis in order to get wall funding is a false argument. The growing numbers of desperate people seeking refuge in this country has elevated the humanitarian and border security threat to a dangerous level. Those liberals in Washington trying to turn border security into a political football are playing Russian roulette with Americans’ safety.

By Jim Zbick | tneditor@tnonline.com