Congress again votes to overturn Trump’s emergency border declaration, but he plans veto

The U.S. House of Representatives on Friday approved a resolution to overturn President Donald Trump’s national emergency border declaration. The vote was 236-174.

This comes after the U.S. Senate voted earlier this week to pass the resolution of disapproval of the President’s emergency declaration at the U.S-Mexico border that he has used to justify moving congressional approved appropriations from military construction projects in an effort to build a border wall with Mexico.

The last time Congress passed a resolution to overturn the border emergency, Trump issued a veto in response and the House failed to override it. Trump is sure to veto this latest resolution just as he killed the similar measure in March.

Opponents of the emergency declaration can force a vote every six months as long as the emergency declaration is ongoing, though the move is primarily a symbolic rebuke of the President without the votes to overturn a veto.

When the Senate voted earlier this week the vote was 54 to 41, well short of the two-thirds majority required to overcome the expected presidential veto.

The House last voted on a resolution to terminate the border emergency in February, followed by a vote in the Senate in March.

Fights in Congress over the border wall — Trump’s signature campaign issue — have been a constant theme of the 116th Congress.

A dispute over the President’s demand for border wall funding led to a standoff over government funding and a partial shutdown last year that stretched into the new session of Congress.

The annual appropriations process is again underway and disagreements over the border wall have continued to spill out into the open, creating a point of tension as Congress works to again avert another shutdown.