United States (US) President Donald Trump plans to use unilateral authority to spend more than $8 billion to construct physical barriers along the US-Mexico border, according to a White House official, a maneuver that risks provoking a lengthy legal battle over presidential powers.
Trump will invoke an emergency declaration to redirect $3.5 billion Congress approved for the defence department’s military construction budget, said another person familiar with the deliberations.
He will also use his ordinary executive authority to reprogram $2.5 billion from the defence departments drug interdiction efforts and $600 million from the treasury department’s drug forfeiture program, said the person, who asked not to be identified to discuss plans ahead of announcement.
The US President’s plans to redirect a total of $7 billion, approved for other purposes, for a wall on top of $1.375 billion for 55 miles of border fencing contained in a spending measure. Trump is poised to sign on Friday, said a White House official. The strategy avoids another politically risky government shutdown while allowing him to show his political supporters he has the will to build the wall.
Democratic leaders signalled in advance that they would probably challenge efforts by Trump to shift federal funds. The President is doing an end run around Congress, the power of the purse, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said on Thursday at a news conference.
The House voted 300-128 on Thursday night for the spending measure. Hours earlier, the Senate passed it 83-16.
Trump's signature on the Friday’s spending bill will keep about one-fourth of the government from closing for a second time in two months. Lawmakers of both parties said they wanted to avoid a repeat of the 35-day partial shutdown that ended January 25 when the President accepted a short-term spending bill without extra wall funding.
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, White House spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.