By Rebecca Ballhaus 

WASHINGTON -- President Trump declared a national emergency Friday over border security, bypassing Congress to divert money from elsewhere in the government to pay for additional barriers along the southern border, a move likely to ignite immediate court challenges.

Mr. Trump also signed a bipartisan spending bill that will keep the government funded through the fall and allocates $1.38 billion for 55 miles of border barriers -- far less than the $5.7 billion the president had asked for.

Unsatisfied with the amount set aside by lawmakers for barriers, Mr. Trump now plans to also draw roughly $6.7 billion from military and other sources, without the approval of Congress.

In remarks at the White House, Mr. Trump defended the actions as critical to national security. "We're talking about an invasion of our country," he said. At another point, however, he suggested an emergency declaration wasn't necessary. "I didn't need to do this, but I'd rather do it much faster," he said

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he would support the declaration, but the move was met with opposition from other lawmakers in both parties, who called it unconstitutional or unnecessary.

"The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said in a joint statement. "The Congress cannot let the President shred the Constitution."

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D., N.Y.) said he would support a resolution to terminate an emergency declaration and that he intends to "pursue all other available legal options."

Republican lawmakers also were critical, saying the president's plan undermined Congress and set a dangerous precedent if future Democratic presidents sought to declare emergencies over their priorities, such as climate change.

"Declaring a national emergency is unnecessary, unwise and inconsistent with the U.S. Constitution," Sen. Lamar Alexander (R., Tenn.) said Friday. "Our founders chose not to create a chief executive with the power to tax the people and spend their money any way he chooses."

Mr. Trump said he anticipated that he would be sued. "We will possibly get a bad ruling. And then we'll get another bad ruling. And then we'll end up in the Supreme Court and hopefully we'll get a fair shake," he said.

Previous presidents have signed dozens of emergency declarations, including those related to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and sanctions, but not for initiatives that Congress declined to fund.

In early signs of a broad legal fight ahead, California and New York state officials said they were planning legal challenges. The American Civil Liberties Union also announced that it had filed a lawsuit against the emergency declaration.

Democratic-led states and border communities said they were readying lawsuits to halt construction that Congress hadn't authorized. El Paso County, Texas -- which Mr. Trump visited Monday to make his case for a border emergency -- said it would join with nonprofit groups to challenge the president's action.

New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas, a Democrat, said a state lawsuit against the Trump plan likely would focus on the wall's potential damage to state land-use and environmental policies in the border region, as well as the possible diversion of funds from joint federal-state law-enforcement programs targeting cross-border crime.

"There are going to be multiple environmental and state and federal ownership issues that still need to be litigated," Mr. Balderas said.

The spending legislation Mr. Trump signed Friday is a $333 billion package of seven bills. In addition to the $1.38 billion in wall funds, it includes money for new equipment at ports of entry, 600 new customs officers, opioid-detection equipment and other technology.

Democrats had offered a similar amount of barrier funding to the president in December, and he rejected it, leading to the five-week government shutdown -- the longest in U.S. history -- that ended last month.

In a largely ad-libbed address Friday, Mr. Trump sought to play down the drama of his declaration, noting they had been put in place before. He added: "There's rarely been a problem. They sign it, nobody cares."

Critics have also questioned Mr. Trump's assertion that border security is in crisis. The number of people apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border -- a figure viewed as an indicator of illegal entries -- fell to lowest total in 2017 in more than 40 years, though it then ticked up, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. At the same time, the proportion of apprehensions involving children and families has surged.

In the 1970s, Congress passed the National Emergencies Act, a measure that placed limits on presidential discretion and allows Congress to terminate an emergency declaration.

White House acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney laid out the spending plans Friday morning, saying the administration would seek to divert about $6.7 billion to build 234 miles of steel bollard wall.

Included in that will be $2.5 billion from the Defense Department's drug-interdiction efforts, plus $600 million from the Treasury Forfeiture Fund. Mr. Trump will rely on the powers of his declaration to tap $3.6 billion from military-construction efforts.

"We have a chance of getting close to $8 billion," Mr. Trump said, before then suggesting he didn't need the full amount. "Whether it's $8 billion, $2 billion or $1.5 billion, it's going to build a lot of wall," he said.

A senior administration official said the White House was still reviewing which military-construction projects would be affected by the emergency declaration and would seek to target projects repairing facilities that "might be able to wait a couple of months into next year."

Mr. Trump said Friday that he was targeting projects that "didn't sound too important to me."

Influential Republicans had urged Mr. Trump not to siphon money from the military to build the wall. "I am concerned about taking military funds for any other purpose," said Rep. Mac Thornberry of Texas, the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee.

Top administration officials have never said where they wanted to locate the 234 miles of border barrier or how they have arrived at that number. About 654 miles of the current border has some kind of physical barrier, and much of the rest of the border has natural barriers.

Democrats said they would challenge any efforts to move money around without congressional approval, including possibly filing a lawsuit.

Mr. Trump has previously said that only around 700 miles of barriers might be needed to secure the border.

Hours after his speech Friday, Mr. Trump formally notified Congress that he had declared a national emergency at the southern border. In his proclamation, he declared that the emergency "requires use of the Armed Forces" and authorized Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan to call up reservists as well as active duty forces he deems appropriate to assist the Department of Homeland Security at the border.

Immigration hawks were divided over the president's moves. "The only national emergency is that our president is an idiot," Ann Coulter said on a Los Angeles radio program.

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R., Fla.), an ally of the president, called the declaration a "less-than-ideal last resort" but said he supported the decision. "He feels like this is a key moment in his presidency, and he's right."

--Kristina Peterson, Peter Nicholas, Louise Radnofsky, Jess Bravin and Andrew Duehren contributed to this article.

Write to Rebecca Ballhaus at Rebecca.Ballhaus@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 15, 2019 19:13 ET (00:13 GMT)