trump had previously threatened to declare a national emergency if congress did not pass his entire desired program for a wall on the united states–mexican border by february 15, 2019. under proclamation 9844, the trump administration plans to redirect $8 billion in previously-agreed expenditure and to use the money to build the wall instead. under trump's plan $3.6 billion assigned to military construction, $2.5 billion meant for the department of defense's drug interdiction activities, and $600 million from treasury's forfeiture fund would be diverted for wall construction. trump’s declaration was unprecedented in that none of the 58 previous emergency declarations made by u.s. presidents involved circumventing congress to spend money it had expressly refused to authorize or allocate.