If our present situation on the southern border isn’t a national emergency, nothing is.

Here are some cold hard facts that demand the wall be built by any means necessary, and no, the President does not need Congressional approval to do so.

Every year, more than 500,000 people are apprehended trying to cross into our nation illegally, and that’s just the half a million who are actually caught without a proper wall!

Contrary to what you may have heard from the lame-stream media, not all of those apprehended have been innocent women and children. Thousands of violent criminals with rap sheets ranging from murder to kidnapping to rape to drug trafficking are caught sneaking into our nation every year

Would you put a lock on your door if you knew an MS-13 gang member wanted to stay in your house? That’s why building a wall is only the bare minimum we should be doing to protect this nation.

MSNBC host Joe Scarborough disgraced himself yet again when he responded to the President’s address to the nation by asking, “How stupid are people who still believe there is a crisis?” Does this guy own a mirror?

While limousine leftists from their Hollywood mansions to their Manhattan high rises thumb their noses and cry racism over commonsense solutions to our increasingly dangerous immigration crisis, it’s every day Americans who are paying the price.

Whether it’s the death of innocent victims like the late and beloved Kate Steinle, shot dead in cold blood by a seven-time deported illegal alien in San Francisco, or the tens of thousands of families whose loved ones die every year from overdosing on opioids smuggled across our Southern border, our government is failing to protect its citizens.

In less than a year, enough fentanyl was seized crossing our Southern border to kill about 25% of our entire national population! That’s not to mention 10,000 pounds of methamphetamines and 6,400 pounds of cocaine to go along with it. If you want to help stop drug overdoses in the United States, you can start by building a wall.

But it doesn’t stop with drugs, while radical leftists in Congress are busy trying to take away Second Amendment rights for ordinary Americans, cartels are smuggling illegal weapons across our Southern border with tremendous success.

While fake feminists are holding anti-Trump marches that accomplish nothing for women’s rights, thousands of women are being raped by coyotes who attempt to smuggle them across a border with no barrier.

Where are the marches for these victims? Where is the wall to wall coverage and town hall meetings for them?

See, this is the real-life cost to open borders that CNN’s Jim Acosta won’t stand up and scream about during a White House press briefing.

The left wants open borders no matter what the cost to America because the left hates America to begin with. They don’t bleed red, white, and blue the way that most Americans do, and they don’t care that our nation is being fundamentally transformed before our very eyes.

President Trump made building a wall the top of his campaign platform for a reason, and the American people rewarded him for it.

They see how their towns have been transformed before their very eyes due to a border with no barrier.

While thousands of individuals from El Salvador tried to cross into the United States this past year as part of the “migrant caravan” the ruthless gang from El Salvador named MS-13 continues to wreak havoc throughout the U.S in some very unexpected places. MS-13 has been linked to dozens of recent murders on Long Island. Since 2010, more than 50 gang members have been arrested from violent crimes. Of the 15 homicides in Nassau county last year, six were connected to MS-13.

With stats like that, Long Island’s residents need a wall just as badly as El Paso’s residents!

That’s why now more than ever, the President must use his authority as Commander in Chief of the United States to protect the homeland in cases of a national emergency. For example, President Trump could tap into USDA funds, or even Obama stimulus loans, and redirect such proceeds towards building the border wall.

Mr. President, you have given Congress every chance to do what is necessary to protect the citizens they are tasked with representing. The American people are behind you, despite whatever slanderous fallacies the media will choose to hurl at you.

The only way this wall will be built is if the President chooses to put the interests of the American people ahead of the advice of those who have neither the interest in helping him or that of this nation.

Brigitte Gabriel is the chairman of ACT For America.org, the largest national security grassroots organization in the U.S. She is a New York Times bestselling author. Her latest book is “RISE” In Defense of Judeo Christian Values and Freedom.