U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to sign an executive order on Wednesday to order the construction of a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, fulfilling one of his most central campaign promises, officials say.
The executive order will direct federal funds towards the building of the wall, according to the New York Times. The order will be signed on Wednesday afternoon during the president’s visit to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
“Big day planned on NATIONAL SECURITY tomorrow. Among many other things, we will build the wall!”, Trump tweeted late on Tuesday.
The president made the border wall one of his key proposals during the election campaign. And although Trump promised to make Mexico pay for the wall, he recently said the U.S. will pay for it upfront and later demand reimbursement from Mexico, which has repeatedly stated that it would not pay for it.
Other details were not immediately available, but Trump is also expected to sign executive orders that will impose a temporary ban on most refugees and a suspension of visas for citizens of Syria and six other Middle Eastern and African countries, sources told the Reuters news agency.
Trump’s executive orders are not believed to include a ban on Muslims entering the United States, which the president at one point proposed during the campaign. Instead, the orders will not focus on religion but target countries whose migrants and refugees could pose a threat due to the country’s security situation.
Those countries include Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen, congressional aides told Reuters.
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