Border wall: Trump declares emergency
Battling with one branch of government and opening a new confrontation with another, US President Donald Trump announced on Friday he was declaring a national emergency to fulfil his pledge to construct a wall along the US-Mexico border.
Bypassing Congress, which approved far less money for his proposed wall than he had sought, Trump said he would use executive action to siphon billions of dollars from federal military construction and counterdrug efforts for the wall, aides said.
The move is already drawing bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill and expected to face rounds of legal challenges. Trump made the announcement from the Rose Garden, as he claimed illegal immigration was “an invasion of our country”.
Trump’s move followed a rare show of bipartisanship when lawmakers voted on Thursday to fund large swathes of the government and avoid a repeat of this winter’s debilitating five-week government shutdown.
The money in the bill for border barriers, $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance a quarter of the over 322 kms he wanted this year. To bridge the gap, Trump announced he will be spending $8 billion on border barriers, combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions, including the national emergency.