Constructing the barrier between the United States and Mexico is set to cost up to $8 billion (£6.2bn)
Donald Trump has declared a national emergency in a bid to push through funding for a border wall between Mexico and the United States.
A major part of his election campaign in 2016, the barrier had been part of a huge power struggle between the president and opposition Democrats, who control the House of Representatives and had refused to approve the budget containing $5.6bn (£4.3m) of spending on the project.
Speaking on Friday, Trump confirmed that he is declaring a national state of emergency that allows him to build “military construction projects”, in this case the wall.
“We’re going to confront the national security crisis on our southern border,” Trump told reporters in Washington DC. “It’s very simple. We want to stop criminals and gangs coming into our country.
“Everyone knows that walls work.”
Whether that is what the powers are designed for is another matter, with the Democrats set to challenge Trump’s plans. The president, however, claimed he is ready to take this all the way to the country’s highest legal body, the Supreme Court.
“We will then be sued,” he said of the aftermath to declaring the state of emergency.
“And we will possibly get a bad ruling. And then we’ll end up in the Supreme Court.”
The House of Representatives and Republican-held Senate had approved a compromise budget on Thursday allotting $1.3bn (£1bn) of government money to extra border security, although not for a wall.
However, ahead of Trump’s declaration, a Democrat spokesperson said: “Declaring a national emergency would be a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract from the fact that President Trump broke his core promise to have Mexico pay for his wall.”
