Trump will visit the southern border on Thursday amid government shutdown
- President Donald Trump will visit the US-Mexico border on Thursday.
- Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the president will "meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis."
- Trump's visit comes amid the government shutdown caused by his demand for $5 billion in border wall funding. Democrats have repeatedly refused to fund Trump's wall.
President Trump will head to the US-Mexico border on Thursday "to meet with those on the frontlines of the national security and humanitarian crisis" happening at the border, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said on Monday.
The president's visit will occur on day 20 of the government shutdown, which he has vowed will not end until the Democrats promise to fund a border wall between the US and Mexico. In a tweet, Sanders said more information on the president's trip would be made available soon.
The partial government shutdown - which is now one of the longest in US history - seems to be nowhere near the end as Democrats and Republicans continue bickering over the funding for the border wall. House Democrats voted to reopen the government on Thursday, the first day of the 116th Congress. But the legislation received veto threats from the White House and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will only take up the spending legislation that Trump supports - which would include funding for the wall.
Trump's trip announcement comes days after he started floating the possibility that he might declare a state of national emergency to secure the border wall funding.
"I can do it if I want," Trump he told reporters last week.
This would not be the president's first trip to the US-Mexico border. He visited California last March to view some border wall prototypes though on Friday he said the wall might be not a concrete structure but a "less obtrusive" steel fence.