On Monday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem (R) announced she is sending National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to help keep the border secure.
This announcement, which was released via Twitter, comes two days before former President Trump’s scheduled visit to the border with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) other GOP House members.
Tomorrow morning I'm officially announcing up to 50 National Guard troops to Texas to help secure our border. The Biden Administration has failed to keep America safe. We shouldn't be making our own communities vulnerable by sending police to fix Biden's border crisis.
— Governor Kristi Noem (@govkristinoem) June 28, 2021
Noem, who assumed office in 2019, joins a long list of Republican lawmakers sending troops from their state to alleviate the immigration crisis at the southern border. Since President Biden took office, the amount of migrants flooding into our border has spiked tremendously. Last month, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) encountered over 180,000 individuals – a 675 percent increase from May of last year at roughly 22,000. These stats do not include the “got aways,” which amount at 1,000 per day.
Abbott thanked Noem for joining him in the effort of keeping their communities safe.
Thank you for sending troops to help secure the border, Governor @KristiNoem.
— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX) June 29, 2021
Together we will keep our communities safe and help end this crisis. https://t.co/WY0HSxjxlJ
Abbott, a longstanding Trump supporter, has been at the forefront of the border security movement since President Biden took office. He has vowed to finish construction of the Texas-Mexico border wall, sent National Guard troops to the border, and, most recently, invited Trump to visit the border with him on Wednesday.
“In response to the federal government’s neglect of all of the people who live along the border, the people who are facing the consequences of the spread of drugs like fentanyl, Texas is stepping up and doing more than any other state ever has done to respond to these challenges along the border,” Abbott said in a press conference this month.
In April, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R) announced he was also sending 250 National Guard troops to the border. Like Abbott, he has been a vocal critic of the Biden administration’s handling of the immigration crisis.
"It's become evidently clear that Arizona needs the National Guard, and the White House is aware of that,” Ducey said in his announcement. “Yet, to this day, there has been no action from this administration, and it doesn’t look like they are going to act any time soon. If this administration isn't going to do anything, then we will.”
Arizona, like Texas, is situated right along Mexico. However, there is no “natural” border, such as the Rio Grande, to separate the two. Vast stretches of the 372 mile border are unbarred from Mexico, but not adjacent to a metropolitan area. Entering the U.S. from the Sonoran Desert is extremely dangerous, yet many migrants are willing to embark on this trek.
This month, Abbott and Ducey sent a join letter to the governors of the other 48 states requesting law enforcement help at the souther. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) was the first to respond, with Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts (R) and Idaho Gov. Brad Little (R) answering the request as well.
The # of illegal border crossings this fiscal year is already the most since 2006. This is a crisis, our law enforcement professionals need help.
— Doug Ducey (@dougducey) June 10, 2021
In response, @GovAbbott and I sent a letter to all US governors requesting law enforcement support along the border in our states. 1/ pic.twitter.com/U0dywS6XBz
“We have problems in Florida that are not organic to Florida, that we’ve been forced to deal with over many years but particularly over the last six months, because of the failure of the Biden administration to secure our southern border and indeed to really do anything constructive about what is going on in the southern border,” DeSantis said during a news conference this month. “We're thankful for these folks being willing to step up, and being willing to help an issue that's causing a lot of problems, obviously, in some of our friendly states.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, known informally as the “border czar,” took part in a trip to Mexico and Guatemala earlier this month to address the “root causes” of the border crisis. However, she faced intense scrutiny from the media and lawmakers alike for not visiting the southern border on her visit.
Assumedly, Trump's border trip prompted Harris to finally visit the border. The vice president ended up visiting El Paso as a pit stop to her weekend getaway in Los Angeles.
“Kamala Harris, your vice president, only went to the border yesterday for the one simple reason: that I announced that I was going,” Trump said to the crowd at his rally in Wellington, Ohio over the weekend. “If I didn’t do that, I don’t know if she was ever going to go.”