Mubasher: President Donald Trump on Friday announced that he is using emergency powers in an attempt to fund his pledged wall on the US-Mexico border, bypassing Congress.

President Trump said he had no choice but to declare a national emergency to deal with what he described as a crisis of illegal immigration, which he marked as “an invasion of [the US].”

The US president is also set to sign later on Friday a government spending bill approved by Congress.  

The move would potentially divert billions of dollars from other projects such counterdrug efforts, to building the wall in order to end the flow of immigrants into the US which Trump repeatedly said it spreads crime and drugs.

Trump demanded that Congress provide him with $5.7 billion to fund the wall as a part of a legislation to fund agencies, triggering a 35.day government shutdown.

In response to the announcement, Democrats pledged to challenge the Republican president’s move as a violation of the US Constitution.

“The president’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution,” Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi and the Senate’s top Democrat Chuck Schumer 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,” they vowed.

Trump acknowledged that his executive order would face a protracted legal fight, predicting that he will “win in the Supreme Court.”