Trump says he's declaring a national emergency and will reportedly redirect more than $6 billion for the border

President Trump made it official Friday: he is declaring a national emergency over the border.

Trump also said he will seek to direct as much as $8 billion for the border, with White House acting Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney telling reporters $600 million will come from the Treasury Department's drug forfeiture fund, $2.5 billion will come from the Department of Defense's drug interdiction program, and another $3.6 billion will come from military construction funding, per The Washington Post.

The White House had previously announced that Trump would sign Congress' shutdown-averting deal, which provides $1.3 billion for border fencing but not $5.7 billion in wall funding like Trump wanted, while at the same time declaring a national emergency to obtain the rest of the money. "It's a great thing to do," Trump said Friday of his national emergency declaration.

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Trump's idea of declaring a national emergency is highly controversial even among Republicans, who fear the precedent it will set and warn that a future Democratic president could take similar action over one of their policy priorities. "A future president may use this exact same tactic to impose the Green New Deal," Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said Thursday, per the Tampa Bay Times.

Congress could theoretically pass a joint resolution to terminate Trump's national emergency declaration. But both the House and the Senate would need supermajorities in order to override a presidential veto of this resolution, The New York Times reports, adding that it's "highly unlikely" enough Republican support exists for this step to be taken.