US President Donald Trump on Friday ruled out declaring a national emergency imminently to bypass Congress and get funding for his Mexico-US border wall project. "The easy solution is for me to call a national emergency... (but) I'm not going to do it so fast because this is something for Congress to do," he told reporters.
Trump's demand for funding for a wall to crack down on illegal immigration - a central plank of his 2016 election campaign - has sparked a political crisis that has seen 800,000 federal employees go without paychecks. Trump's demand for $5.7 billion to fund border wall construction has morphed from a crowd-pleasing campaign slogan to an epic political fight paralyzing Washington, setting an ominous precedent for the remaining two years of the real estate magnate's troubled first term.
Trump tweeted on Friday that the situation on the Mexican border was "an invasion" and insisting that without a wall, "our Country cannot be safe. Criminals, Gangs, Human Traffickers, Drugs & so much other big trouble."
But unable to persuade opposition Democrats to give him the money, Trump refused three weeks ago to sign off on a large chunk of unrelated government funding.
On Friday, that partial government shutdown hit the 21-day mark, equalling the record from previous funding freezes and marking the first day in the saga that paychecks failed to appear for workers as varied as FBI agents, air traffic controllers and museum staff around the country.
Trump hoped the shutdown would pressure Congress into giving him the wall money but the Democrats, who control the House of Representatives, haven't budged, saying they won't even discuss wall funding before government is fully reopened.
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