Page 4 - ARUBA TODAY

A4 U.S. NEWS
Thursday 21 February 2019

Dems’ measure blocking Trump emergency will come Friday

By ALAN FRAM aration of powers. ic-run House seems likely.
Associated Press That could set up a vote The measure would then
WASHINGTON (AP) — by the full House by mid- move to the Republican-
House Democrats will file March, if not sooner. controlled Senate, where
a resolution Friday aimed The battle is over a declara- there may be enough GOP
at blocking the national tion that Trump, whose bor- defections for approval.
emergency declaration der wall was the most vis- Trump has promised to veto
that President Donald ible trademark of his presi- the measure.
Trump has issued to help dential campaign, is using It seems unlikely Congress
finance his wall along the to try spending billions of could muster the two-thirds
Southwest border, teeing dollars beyond what Con- majorities in each chamber
up a clash over billions of gress has authorized to start needed to override a veto.
dollars, immigration policy building border barriers. Aides to Rep.
and the Constitution’s sep- Passage by the Democrat- Joaquin Castro, D-Texas,

President Donald Trump gestures as visiting Austrian Chancellor
Sebastian Kurz leaves the White House in Washington following
their meeting, Wednesday, Feb. 20, 2019.
Associated Press
were circulating a letter more than 200 miles.
Wednesday to other con- Besides signing the bill,
gressional offices seeking Trump also declared a na-
additional co-sponsors to tional emergency that he
his one-page resolution. says gives him access to an
“We are planning to intro- additional $6.6 billion that
duce it on Friday morn- would be taken from a fed-
ing,” said the letter, which eral asset forfeiture fund,
was obtained by The As- Defense Department anti-
sociated Press. Castro’s drug efforts and military
measure, which described construction projects.
Trump’s emergency dec- Democrats and some Re-
laration, says it “is hereby publicans say there is no
terminated.” Castro chairs emergency at the border
the Congressional Hispan- and say Trump is improp-
ic Caucus. Congress ap- erly declaring one to work
proved a vast spending bill around Congress’ rejection
last week providing nearly of the higher amounts.
$1.4 billion to build 55 miles The plan for introducing the
of border barriers in Texas’ resolution was initially de-
Rio Grande Valley while scribed by officials at three
preventing a renewed gov- progressive groups who
ernment shutdown. That heard of them from con-
measure represented a re- gressional aides but were
jection of Trump’s demand not authorized to discuss
for $5.7 billion to construct the plans privately.q