WASHINGTON — President Trump will ask Congress on Monday for $8.6 billion in additional funding to build a wall along the United States border with Mexico, a person familiar with the details said on Sunday.
The request, which will come as part of Mr. Trump’s fiscal 2020 budget proposal, is certain to reignite a conflict with Democrats that led to a record-long government shutdown this year. Mr. Trump had previously requested $5.7 billion to build a wall but was rebuffed by both Democrats and Republicans, who approved a spending bill that did not include the funding.
That resulted in Mr. Trump declaring a national emergency on the border with Mexico to access billions of dollars that Congress refused to give him to build a wall there.
The new budget request is intended to allow for the completion of 700 miles of barrier, which is the total that Mr. Trump intends to build, mostly new but some refurbished.
Larry Kudlow, the head of Mr. Trump’s National Economic Council, confirmed the request for wall money on “Fox News Sunday.” Mr. Kudlow added that he supposes “there will be” a fight over that spending in Congress.
“I would just say that the whole issue of the wall and border security is of paramount importance,” Mr. Kudlow said. “We have a crisis down there.”
Mr. Kudlow also defended proposed cuts to government programs that the budget is expected to include, and said the administration projects the economy will grow 3 percent this year, a forecast well above what the Federal Reserve and other outside economists expect.
Mr. Trump’s budget is almost certainly dead on arrival in Congress, where Democrats now control the House. Many of his past proposals, including cuts in some federal spending programs, additional border wall funding and a large federal infrastructure initiative, failed to advance in Congress even when Republicans controlled both chambers. And Democratic congressional leaders warned on Sunday that his new wall funding request would meet the same fate.
“President Trump hurt millions of Americans and caused widespread chaos when he recklessly shut down the government to try to get his expensive and ineffective wall, which he promised would be paid for by Mexico,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the Democratic Senate leader, Chuck Schumer of New York, said in a joint statement Sunday. “Congress refused to fund his wall, and he was forced to admit defeat and reopen the government. The same thing will repeat itself if he tries this again. We hope he learned his lesson.”
