WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and border-state governors are working to “immediately” deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border to fight illegal immigration, with some troops potentially arriving later Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said.
“The threat is real,” Nielsen said at an afternoon briefing, adding that Trump was signing a proclamation to put the deployment into effect. “It’s time to act.”
The announcement came hours after Trump pledged “strong action today” on immigration and a day after he said he wants to use the military to secure the southern border until his “big, beautiful wall” is erected.
WATCH: White House announces deployment of National Guard to U.S.-Mexico border
In a tweet early Wednesday, Trump said that “Our Border Laws are very weak” and that Democrats “stand in our way” of new laws. He added, “We will be taking strong action today.”
Trump told reporters on Tuesday that he’d been discussing the idea of using the military at the border with Defence Secretary Jim Mattis.
“We’re going to be doing things militarily. Until we can have a wall and proper security, we’re going to be guarding our border with the military,” Trump said, calling the move a “big step.”
Federal law prohibits the use of active-duty service members for law enforcement inside the U.S., unless specifically authorized by Congress. But over the past 12 years, presidents have twice sent National Guard troops to the border to bolster security and assist with surveillance and other support. The White House counsel’s office has been working on the idea for several weeks, according to a senior official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans.
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Trump has been frustrated by slow action on building a wall along the Mexican border. He’s previously suggested using the Pentagon’s budget to pay for the wall, arguing it is a national security priority, despite strict rules that prohibit spending that’s not authorized by Congress.
Nielsen said the administration was considering a model similar to a 2006 operation in which President George W. Bush deployed National Guard troops to the southern border, with a focus on assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel.
“We are anxious to have the support,” she said.
WATCH: Trump directs National Guard troops to be sent to Mexico border
Under Operation Jump Start, 6,000 National Guard troops were sent to assist the border patrol with non-law enforcement duties while additional border agents were hired and trained. Over two years, about 29,000 National Guard forces participated as forces rotated in and out. The Guard members were used for surveillance, communications, administrative support, intelligence, analysis and the installation of border security infrastructure.
In addition, President Barack Obama sent about 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2010 to beef up efforts against drug smuggling and illegal immigration.
Texas also deployed military forces to its 800-mile (1,290-kilometre) border with Mexico. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, now Trump’s energy secretary, sent 1,000 Texas National Guardsmen to the Rio Grande Valley in 2014 in response to a sharp increase in Central American children crossing the border alone.
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Trump met Tuesday with top administration officials, including Mattis, Nielsen and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to discuss the administration’s strategy to address what White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders described as “the growing influx of illegal immigration, drugs and violent gang members from Central America.”
In addition to mobilizing the National Guard, Trump and senior officials “agreed on the need to pressure Congress to urgently pass legislation to close legal loopholes exploited by criminal trafficking, narco-terrorist and smuggling organizations,” Sanders said.
Trump has been fixated on the issue since he grudgingly signed a spending bill last month that includes far less money for the wall than he’d hoped for.
The $1.3 trillion package included $1.6 billion for border wall spending – a fraction of the $25 billion Trump made a last-minute push to secure. And much of that money can be used only to repair existing segments, not to build new sections.
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Trump spent the first months of his presidency bragging about a dramatic drop in illegal border crossings. Indeed, the 2017 fiscal year marked a 45-year low for Border Patrol arrests. But the numbers have been slowly ticking up since last April and are now on par with many months of the Obama administration. Statistics show 36,695 arrests of people trying to cross the southwest border in February 2018, up from 23,555 in the same month of the previous year.
At last week’s meeting, Trump “directed a vigorous administrative strategy to confront this threat and protect America’s national security,” Sanders said. Tuesday’s briefing was a follow-up to discuss the plans.
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Associated Press writers Elliot Spagat in San Diego; Mark Sherman, Catherine Lucey, Darlene Superville and Kevin Freking in Washington; Nomaan Merchant in Houston; and Mark Stevenson in Mexico City contributed to this report.
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