US President Trump declared a national emergency

President Donald Trump on Friday declared a national emergency in a bid to fund his promised wall at the U.S.-Mexico border without congressional approval, an action Democrats vowed to challenge as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.

Trump is seeking to secure about $6.5 billion more in funding through executive action than Congress approved in a bill passed Thursday.

Many of Trump’s Republican allies have called a national emergency ill-advised, and Democrats immediately called the move unconstitutional and vowed to fight it legislatively or in court. Trump also faced criticism for seeking to divert money from military construction and drug interdiction programs to pay for the border barriers.

The emergency declaration is expected to face an array of other legal challenges. Republican president’s move to circumvent Congress represented an escalation in his efforts to make good on a 2016 presidential campaign pledge to build a wall to halt the flow into the country of illegal immigrants, whom Trump says bring crime and drugs.

He also signed a bipartisan government spending bill on Friday that would prevent another partial government shutdown by funding several agencies that otherwise would have closed on Saturday.

rump on Friday signed a package of seven spending bills that will fund nine federal departments including Transportation, Agriculture, and Homeland Security, narrowly averting another government shutdown. He also moved ahead with a national emergency declaration, a move that will enable him to tap into money from other military construction projects in order to fund a wall.

“We’re going to confront the national emergency along the southern border, not just because it’s a campaign promise,” Trump said, acknowledging that his effort would be met with a swift legal challenge.

The spending package, which House and Senate negotiators released late Wednesday evening, includes $1.375 billion in funding for physical barriers along the border but no money for a concrete border wall. Instead, the money for barriers will be used for “bollard fencing,” the equivalent of the “steel slats” that Trump has been touting in recent months.