Trump news: President begrudgingly signs border bill and declares national emergency at US-Mexico border
President predicts lengthy legal battle over national emergency reaching all the way to Supreme Court
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Donald Trump has declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the US-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the US Constitution.
The Republican president’s move to circumvent Congress represented a new approach to making good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge to halt the flow of undocumented immigrants into the country, whom the president says bring crime and drugs.
He also later signed a bipartisan government spending bill Congress approved on Thursday that would prevent another partial government shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday.
Mr Trump made no direct mention in rambling Rose Garden comments of the funding bill. It represents a legislative defeat for him since it contains no money for his proposed wall - the focus of weeks of conflict between him and Democrats in Congress.
He had demanded that Congress provide him with billions in wall funding as part of legislation to fund the agencies. That triggered a historic, 35-day December-January government shutdown that hurt the US economy and his opinion poll numbers.
By reorienting his quest for wall funding toward a legally uncertain strategy based on declaring a national emergency, Mr Trump risks plunging into a lengthy legislative and legal battle with Democrats and dividing his fellow Republicans.
At least 15 Democrats in the Republican-controlled Senate introduced legislation on Thursday to prevent Mr Trump from invoking emergency powers to transfer funds to his wall from accounts Congress has already committed to other projects.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer swiftly responded to Trump’s declaration.
“The president’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution,” they said in a statement. “The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.”
Reuters contributed to this report. Check out The Independent's live coverage of the president's national emergency declaration below:
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“There is no national security crisis at the border. To declare one based on the reality on the ground is an abuse of power that undercuts the rule of law,” Human Rights Campaign Government Affairs Director David Stacy said in a statement sent to The Independent.“A solid majority of the American people reject funding for a wall on our southern border because it is a waste of money, unnecessary and ineffective. This emergency declaration is just the latest extreme step that Donald Trump and Mike Pence have taken to divide America. From revoking protections for more than a million Dreamers, including 75,000 LGBTQ young people, detaining tens of thousands of immigrants, making asylum claims almost impossible and separating thousands of children from their parents, the Trump-Pence Administration has harmed our country and violated the trust of the American people.”
The Independent's Holly Baxter live-tweeted the president's national emergency declaration, a worthy read for insight on the Friday announcement:
Democrats and others are piling onto the president's statement that he "didn't need to do this" when referencing his declaring a national emergency along the US-Mexico border:
Meanwhile, Special Counsel Robert Mueller could be delivering a recommendation today on Paul Manafort's sentencing in Washington after the federal judge presiding over the case said this week she believed he had intentionally lied to investigators:
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Joaquin Castro have announced new legislation the two Democratic lawmakers will introduce as part of an effort to block Donald Trump’s national emergency declaration over the US-Mexico border.
The Democratic lawmakers pointed to the National Emergencies Act that provides Congress the ability to “terminate the President’s emergency declaration,” according to Mr Castro.
In a tweet following the announcement, Ms Ocasio-Cortez — a progressive freshman representative from New York City — wrote: “@JoaquinCastrotx and I aren’t going to let the President declare a fake national emergency without a fight”.
Republican Marco Rubio has suggested Donald Trump's national emergency declaration is unconstitutional:
White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders has posted the following photo showing Donald Trump signing the congressional funding bill to avoid another federal government shutdown:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has posted the following message to Twitter following the president's national emergency declaration:
This may in fact be the most important moment from Donald Trump's press conference over his national emergency declaration:
This concludes The Independent's live coverage of Donald Trump's national emergency declaration. Read below for more:
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