Skip to footer

Gov. Rick Perry to send 1,000 National Guard troops to US-Mexico border

Texas Gov. Rick Perry is expected to announce Monday afternoon that he's sending 1,000 National Guard troops to stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico, according to state legislators.

  • By Staff Associated Press

| Austin, Texas

A state lawmaker says Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to deploy as many as 1,000 National Guard troops to South Texas to bolster security along the Mexico border.

Rep. Terry Canales says he was briefed by his staff on Sunday following a conference call with the governor's office, Texas National Guard and the state Department of Public Safety. Perry is scheduled to make the announcement Monday afternoon.

The Monitor reports that state Sen. Juan “Chuy” Hinojosa, D-McAllen also confirmed that Perry plans to call out the National Guard.

Hinojosa did not have details of the effort, but an internal memo from another state official’s office said the governor planned to call about 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the Rio Grande Valley — at a cost of about $12 million per month.

The memo was provided to The Monitor on the condition of anonymity because the information is not yet public.

Troops are expected to enter the area gradually, building up to 1,000 after about a month, the memo said.

The troops will join the Texas Department of Public Safety in its recent surge to combat human smuggling and drug trafficking amid the influx of mostly Central Americans illegally crossing the Rio Grande.

“This is not a militarization of the border,” the memo states. “The DPS and the National Guard are working to keep any drug and human trafficking south of (U.S. Highway) 83 and with the goal of keeping any smuggling from entering major highways to transport East/West/and North.”

More than 3,000 Border Patrol agents currently work in South Texas, and Perry has repeatedly asked President Barack Obama to send the National Guard to the border.

The Christian Science Monitor looked at the pros and cons of sending in the National Guard to protect the US-Mexico border.

In an election year, it also makes good politics. Securing the border is a key GOP demand on the immigration issue generally. The first reaction from the speaker’s office to the White House request for emergency funding on Tuesday was to note that it did not include the National Guard. 

Why is the administration reluctant?

The main reason is that enforcement is not the issue, according to the Obama administration. These unaccompanied child migrants – with as many as 90,000 expected to be apprehended by the time this fiscal year finishes at the end of September – are not trying to evade border patrol agents. They are looking for them, hoping that the patrol will pass them through a clogged-up processing system that allows them to stay in the United States. 

In June, Perry announced that the state would steer another $1.3 million each week to the Department of Public Safety to assist in border security through at least the end of the year.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Gov. Rick Perry to send 1,000 National Guard troops to US-Mexico border
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0721/Gov.-Rick-Perry-to-send-1-000-National-Guard-troops-to-US-Mexico-border
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe