North Dakota will send its National Guard troops down to the U.S.-Mexico border to help overwhelmed federal and local law enforcement respond to the surge of illegal immigration.
“We have monitored the ongoing crisis at the southern border and will send 125 @NDNationalGuard soldiers from the 957th Engineer Company at the Army’s request to help secure our border,” Republican Gov. Doug Burgum said in a tweet Tuesday. “Grateful for our courageous Guard members’ readiness to protect our great state and nation.”
We have monitored the ongoing crisis at the southern border and will send 125 @NDNationalGuard soldiers from the 957th Engineer Company at the Army’s request to help secure our border. Grateful for our courageous Guard members’ readiness to protect our great state and nation. pic.twitter.com/TjUDsns8wO
— Gov. Doug Burgum (@DougBurgum) July 6, 2021
The troops will travel more than 1,000 miles from their home on the northern border. Republican Sen. Kevin Cramer applauded the move, adding the “problems at the southern border are a threat to all Americans.”
North Dakota is the seventh state to send its law enforcement officers and military to the southern border after a nationwide request from Republican Govs. Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona in June.
OHIO MAKES IT SIX STATES SENDING MILITARY AND POLICE TO RESPOND TO BIDEN BORDER CRISIS
Texas has seen the most illegal immigration since the start of the Biden administration, as well as over the past decade. The state has spent $3.5 billion on border security efforts since 2014, a financial burden Abbott said should prompt other states to pitch in given that migrants who are released into the United States after being apprehended, or those who evade arrest, will likely not stay in Texas but travel to other destinations nationwide.
At present, 1,000 Texas Department of Public Safety troopers, hundreds of Texas National Guard soldiers, hundreds of Arizona National Guard soldiers, and an unspecified number of Arizona Department of Public Safety and law enforcement officers have been sent to the border. States that send assistance are expected to help stop drug smugglers and cartels from pushing drugs such as fentanyl and methamphetamine into the country.
“Given the staggering number of violations now occurring in Texas and Arizona, additional manpower is needed from any state that can spare it. With your help, we can apprehend more of these perpetrators of state and federal crimes, before they can cause problems in your state,” the governors wrote in a letter to the 48 other governors in mid-June.
Any officers sent will have the same authorities they hold their home state, as well as the “power to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border into our territory,” which is normally a crime only federal law enforcement such as the Border Patrol has jurisdiction to enforce.
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Military, such as state National Guard forces, were left out of the request, as Abbott and Ducey want to give active law enforcement officers broader policing authorities. Military on the border cannot make arrests and typically serve in passive roles, including monitoring cameras and manning unfinished portions of the border wall.
Some states, including North Dakota, have opted to send military instead of law enforcement out of concern for public safety in the home state.
