Arizona, Texas Sending National Guard to Border

Governors respond to President Trump's request
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 6, 2018 6:05 PM CDT
Arizona, Texas Sending National Guard to Border
A marker embedded in the pavement marks the imaginary line between the United States and Mexico at the San Ysidro border checkpoint between San Diego, Calif., and Tijuana, Mexico.   (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)

Arizona and Texas announced Friday that they were preparing to deploy National Guard members to the US-Mexico border in response to President Trump's call for more border security. Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said about 150 Guard members would deploy next week. And the Texas Military Department, the umbrella agency over the Texas National Guard branches, said on its Twitter account that it would hold a Friday night news conference on its preparations, though further details were not immediately available, per the AP. Trump told reporters Thursday that he wants to send between 2,000 and 4,000 National Guard members to the border to help fight illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

That would be lower than the roughly 6,000 National Guard members that former President George W. Bush sent in 2006 during another border security operation, though more than the 1,200 Guard members President Barack Obama sent in 2010. A spokesman for Ducey said Friday that the deployment would be funded under a federal law called Title 32. Under that law, the National Guard remains under the command and control of each state's governor. Department of Homeland Security officials have said Guard members could support Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement agencies. DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said this week that Guard members could "help look at the technology, the surveillance," and that the department might ask for fleet mechanics.

(More National Guard stories.)

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