Trump to Allocate $8 Billion for Border Wall as He Declares National Emergency
President to issue $8b fund to build the wall along the US Southern Border
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President Donald Trump is allocating $8 billion from various federal agencies to fund his long-promised wall along the US Southern Border as he declares a national emergency on Friday.
By declaring a national emergency, Trump's administration will be able to move funds to pay for the project, bypassing Congress and resistance from Pelosi's Democrats, a senior administration official told Fox News late Thursday.
Trump is expected to sign a House border security package on Friday that provides $1.4 billion for the project, falling far short of the $5.7 billion the president requested.
The sum offered by the Democrats would only finance just a quarter of the 200-plus miles he wanted to defend as a priority against illegal immigrants.
By accessing the necessary funding, President Trump will now be able to complete the border wall and protect Americans from illegal alien-related crime such as human trafficking, drug smuggling, and MS-13 gang violence.
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According to Fox News, Sarah Sanders, the White House press secretary, said earlier Thursday that Trump will sign the spending bill and declare a national emergency at the same time Friday morning.
"President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action — including a national emergency — to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border," Sanders said in a statement.
The White House said Trump would sign the legislation but act unilaterally to get more funding, prompting condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority.
In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said such a declaration would be “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract” from Trump’s failure to force Mexico to pay for the wall, as he’s promised for years.
“Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” they said.
They declined to say whether that meant lawsuits or votes on resolutions to prevent Trump from unilaterally shifting money to wall-building, with aides saying they’d wait to see what he does.
Today's declaration is an abuse of power -- a lawless, desperate attempt to distract people from Trump's failure to deliver on his core campaign promise to get Mexico to pay for his a border wall.
— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) February 14, 2019
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In a separate statement on Thursday, Pelosi blasted President Trump's plan to declare a national emergency to fund his border wall without congressional approval.
During her weekly press conference, Pelosi called Trump's claims of a crisis on the US-Mexico border an "illusion."
The Democrat leader argued that the unusual move to bypass Congress will set an unwelcome precedent for both parties.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced on Thursday that Trump will sign a bipartisan border security proposal and at the same time declare a national emergency to secure additional funding for his long-promised border wall.
