US House to vote to end Trump’s border wall emergency

Democrats are moving quickly to try to roll back President Donald Trump's declaration of a national emergency to siphon billions of dollars from the military to fund construction of a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Tuesday's vote in the Democratic-controlled House comes on legislation to revoke Trump's executive order from earlier this month.

The resolution is expected to sail easily through the Democratic-controlled House. The action then moves to the Republican-majority Senate, where the measure’s future is uncertain even though it only requires a simple majority to pass.

The No. 2 House Democrat, Representative Steny Hoyer, said at a press conference on Monday that he had traveled to the U.S.-Mexico border twice in the past few weeks.

“What I concluded is there is no crisis at the border. The issue ... will be whether there is a crisis of our constitutional adherence,” Hoyer said.

Trump, who declared the national emergency this month after Congress declined his request for $5.7 billion to help build a border wall, vowed last week to veto the measure if it passes both chambers.

Congress would then have to muster the two-thirds majority necessary - a high hurdle - to override the president’s veto in order for the measure to take effect.

Lawmakers must not allow “any president (to) on a whim declare emergencies, simply because he or she can’t get their way in the Congress,” Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer declared Monday.

Schumer warned Trump’s emergency declaration “could cannibalize funding from worthy projects all over the country,” noting that the administration had not even decided yet what projects to take the funds from.

About 226 House lawmakers are co-sponsoring the bill, including all but a handful of Democrats as well as one Republican, Justin Amash.

The issue is also in the courts. A coalition of 16 U.S. states led by California has sued Trump and top members of his administration to block his emergency declaration.

Congress this month appropriated $1.37 billion for building border barriers following a battle with Trump, which included a 35-day partial government shutdown - the longest in U.S. history - when agency funding lapsed on Dec. 22.