House to vote on Trump's $1.6B border wall request next week

Washington: House Republicans are moving next week to fund President Donald Trump's $1.6 billion request to begin construction of his oft-promised wall along the US-Mexico border.

Aides said GOP leaders have decided to attach the money to a spending bill for the Defense Department and a handful of other agencies like the Department of Veterans Affairs. It would build 74 miles of fencing and levee wall in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas and near San Diego.

The wall money is strongly opposed by Democrats and some Republicans. But Trump is insistent on it, and the GOP plan would give Trump a much-needed victory on Capitol Hill.

Trump has promised that Mexico would pay for the wall but hasn't come up with a plan to force it to actually do so.