Send Michigan National Guard to southern border

LANSING — Republican leaders in the state House and Senate want Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to deploy the Michigan National Guard to the country’s southern border to help deter illegal immigration, and they are calling for an $8 million budget allocation to do so.

Thursday’s request from House Minority Leader Matt Hall and Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt came a week after the pair flew to Eagle Pass, Texas, to visit the southern border. of the country for an event organized by the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“After being on the front lines and seeing the challenges,” it’s clear more help is needed, said Nesbitt, R-Porter Township.

Eagle Pass has become a point of tension for conservatives across the country, who continue to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican who is in dispute with the Biden administration over immigration enforcement. A handful of Republican governors have already deployed their own state’s National Guard to the border, including Arkansas, Virginia and North Dakota.

“When the federal government refuses to enforce our immigration laws or defend our border, then it becomes a state issue,” said Hall, R-Richland Township.

Hall and Nesbitt’s funding request is unlikely to advance in the Legislature, which after Tuesday’s special election is firmly back in the hands of Democrats, who have not taken up other GOP immigration proposals this year or last. past.

Stacey LaRouche, press secretary for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, said in a statement to Bridge Michigan that the governor is serious about immigration and border security, but that “the American people want real solutions.”

“Immigration is a serious national challenge that we have been wrestling with for decades,” LaRouche said, noting that Whitmer sent National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border under the Trump and Biden administrations and “met with our National Guard soldiers on the front lines at the border.”

U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Paul D. Rogers, adjutant general of the Michigan National Guard and director of the Michigan Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, said in a statement that the guardsmen would answer “the call to support every federal request for support.” military for the southwest border.”

However, Nesbitt and Hall’s request is not a federal request.

Republicans have tried to make immigration a major issue in this year’s presidential election. In a recent speech in Grand Rapids, former President Donald Trump criticized President Joe Biden’s policies, while Democrats blamed Trump for ruining a bipartisan border agreement that was intended to increase security.

Trump and other Republicans have highlighted a series of recent events in Michigan, including an undocumented immigrant who shot and killed his girlfriend in Grand Rapids, and robberies by “transnational gangs” in the Detroit metropolitan area.

The GOP funding request appears unusual. Use of the National Guard within the state is paid for by the state itself, while the federal government foots the bill for deployments in other parts of the country.

Hall spokesman Jerry Ward said he believed it was unlikely that Biden would approve funding to send troops to the southern border, especially since he and Abbott remain at odds over the best way to handle law enforcement, which makes appropriate for the state to fund the National Guard effort.

Republicans have criticized the Whitmer administration’s “newcomer rent subsidy” program for refugees and its budget proposal to use $8 million to fund legal aid for asylum seekers.

That $8 million could be used to fund the deployment of the National Guard, Ward said.

Jeff Wiggins, Nesbitt’s spokesman, was less definitive about where he thinks National Guard funding should come from.

“There are many places in the governor’s proposed budget where we believe taxpayer dollars would be better spent,” Wiggins said. “It’s up to them whether Democrats believe securing the border is a top priority.”