WASHINGTON, Feb. 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday night passed a legislation on spending and border security to avert another government shutdown, hours after the bill was approved by the Senate.
The bill now goes to the desk of President Donald Trump. White House said earlier in the day that the president will sign the bill and declare a national emergency at the same time so as to get money for funding the U.S.-Mexico border wall, his major campaign promise.
The final vote in the House was 300-128, and Senate voted 82-16 to pass the bill Thursday afternoon.
"President Trump will sign the government funding bill, and as he has stated before, he will also take other executive action -- including a national emergency -- to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border," White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
The 1,159-page bill was unveiled by House and Senate bipartisan negotiators just before Wednesday midnight, leaving little time for lawmakers to actually digest its contents.
However, once approved by the president, the bill will keep the government open past a midnight Friday deadline for another shutdown and run through the end of September by providing 333 billion U.S. dollars to finance a number of government departments and agencies.
The amount includes 1.375 billion dollars for physical barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border, but Trump had previously demanded 5.7 billion dollars in funding for the border wall.
The fight over the funding of the border wall between the White House and congressional Democrats led to the record-breaking 35-day federal government shutdown which ended late January.
