Trump to seek special powers to pay for money to pay for the border wall

President Trump is to set to declare a national emergency to get the money for his promised US-Mexico border wall.

That's according to a statement released by White House on Thursday.

He wants to do this because Congress - the body which creates, debates and makes laws in the United States - have refused to approve the money that he needs to build the wall.

Building a wall was one of Donald Trump's key promises when he was campaigning to become president. It was an idea that divided the country, but won Donald Trump many supporters.

The President has been very frustrated that he's not been able to get it done so far.

A national emergency is usually declared in times of national crisis, and gives the President special powers that effectively allow him to get around the usual rules.

In this case, Mr Trump has said that there is a migration crisis on the US-Mexico border..

Is there really a border emergency?

More than 2,000 people were turned away or arrested at the border each day during November 2018.

Supporters of Mr Trump's plans for a wall have said these large numbers of people mean it is an emergency situation.

Others have said that the number of people coming across the southern border is much lower than ten years ago, so the wall isn't needed.

Members of the Democratic Party, who oppose Mr Trump, have accused the president of an "abuse of power" - which means using his power as president in the wrong way.

Several members of Donald Trump's party, the Republicans, have also voiced concern.

The story of Trump's wall up until now

The US government shutdown was longest in US history

Building a border wall was a key campaign pledge of Mr Trump's presidential campaign.

During his campaign he famously said that Mexico would pay for the wall, but it's since become clear that if a wall is to be built, America will have to pay for it.

President Trump wants $5.6 billion dollars - that's about £4.4 billion - for its construction, but Democrat politicians are against spending money on the wall.

Since their success in recent US elections, they have been able to refuse to give it him.

They refused to allocate the money for this as part of the big spending plan which keep the government running, so Donald Trump refused to sign it off.

Because of this disagreement, earlier this year, parts of the government went into shutdown.

Eventually a deal was done to end the shutdown, but it put off the problems until now.

So what's the situation now?

There have also been protests showing support for Trump's wall plans

The president and Congress have now agreed another spending bill, which includes money for border security, including physical barriers, but again does not give money towards Mr Trump's wall.

This bill must be signed on Friday to avert another shutdown. Experts seem to think that rather than force another shutdown, Mr Trump will sign it.

But the suggestion seems to be that, at the same time, the president could declare the situation at the border a national emergency.

Declaring a national emergency would then give the president the power to divert money from existing military or disaster relief budgets to pay for the wall.