US Senate, House pass bill to avert government shutdown Thursday Feb 14,2019

The US House of Representatives has passed a bill to avert another partial government shutdown with bipartisan spending legislation that funds new barriers for part of the US-Mexico border, but not the $5.7bn that President Donald Trump sought for a wall.

The Democratic-led House of Representatives on Thursday Feb 14,2019 backed the bill 300-128, with 86 House Republicans voting in favour. 

The Democratic-led House of Representatives  vote followed an earlier approval by the Republican-led Senate, 83-16.

Thursday's bill does not provide the $5.7bn request for Trump's border wall - a demand that triggered the previous shutdown, which lasted for 35 days. Democrats oppose the wall, calling it ineffective, immoral and expensive. 

The bill does provide $1.37bn in new money to help build 55 miles (88.5km) of new physical barriers on the border. It is the same level of funding Congress appropriated for border security measures last year, including barriers but not concrete walls.

A border wall was a central 2016 campaign promise by Trump. He originally said Mexico would pay for the wall along the 3,200km border, an idea Mexico dismissed.

As the Senate prepared to vote on the bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told the chamber that Trump said he would sign the bill and would also declare a national emergency to build his border wall. 

The White House later confirmed McConnell's statement, saying the president would "take other executive action - including a national emergency - to ensure we stop the national security and humanitarian crisis at the border".

The US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, immediately hit back, saying Democrats were prepared to respond appropriately to a national emergency declaration.

Nancy Pelosi said there was not a crisis at the border with Mexico that required an emergency order