Donald Trump to declare national emergency over Mexico border wall

Donald Trump plans to sign a bill to avert a government shutdown and then announce he is using executive action, including declaring a national emergency, to help finance construction on his proposed Mexican border wall, the White House has said.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell announced in the Senate that Trump intended to sign the compromise border security measure today to keep the government open, following several phone calls with the president in which he repeatedly pleaded with him to sign the deal.

McConnell said Trump had agreed to sign the bill while simultaneously declaring a national emergency at the US-Mexico border, bypassing Congress on securing the funding for his wall and getting the military to build it.

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“Many of Trump’s GOP congressional allies called the move ill-advised, and Democrats promised immediate action aimed at blocking it,” the Washington Post says.

House speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer issued a joint statement following the announcement, saying Trump’s plan to declare the emergency was “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency”.

“This is not an emergency, and the president’s fear mongering doesn’t make it one,” they said.

Trump is seeking $8 billion (£6.25 billion) in funding to build the wall, despite his campaign promise that he would make Mexico pay for it, CNN notes.