With thousands of FBI and TSA staff furloughed and critical functions hit, the shutdown is a disaster for national security

President Trump closed the US government over a fabricated border crisis, and in doing so has sparked a real national security emergency. By shutting down the government, Trump has disabled America’s defenses against threats to national security.

Trump decided to shut down the government over the claim that America needs a wall to deal with a crisis at the border with Mexico. But there is no crisis on the border other than the humanitarian crisis of his own making, best illustrated by the thousands of children separated from their parents and the two children who died in Customs and Border Protection custody. Trump’s claims of more terrorists and crime flowing across the border are lies and the vast majority of hard drugs coming across the border come through official ports of entry, not between ports of entry where a wall might stand.