Trump signs order to send National Guard troops to southern border

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an order Wednesday to deploy National Guard troops to the southern border, in the administration’s latest move to try to curb illegal immigration.

The signing came shortly after Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen announced the plan at the White House news briefing.

Nielsen said details about the size, cost and duration of the operation were still being finalized and not yet available, but said the move was being pushed ahead with “urgency” in anticipation of expected increases in illegal border crossings in the coming months.

“We do hope that the deployment begins immediately,” Nielsen said, adding that the administration was working with border-state governors to execute the deployment.

Trump’s order came a day after he declared to reporters at the White House that he’s prepared to send U.S. troops to the southern border until his long-promised border wall is fully funded and built.

Trump alluded to Wednesday’s announcement in a morning tweet that said his administration “will be taking strong action today” on what he called the nation’s “weak” border laws.

The call for troops at the border comes amid the president’s growing frustration that Congress has not authorized the full $25 billion in border wall funding he is seeking.

The $1.3 trillion spending package recently passed by lawmakers includes only $1.6 billion for border wall funding, and the bulk of that money must be used to repair existing parts of the wall, not for new construction.

Nielsen urged Congress to authorize the funding and a package of measures the Trump administration is crafting that seeks to make it tougher for migrants to seek asylum and that would allow border patrol officers to detain apprehended migrants, particularly minors often released to relatives living in the United States, for a longer period of time as their cases wind their way through the immigration court system.

“As a result of this continued congressional inaction, the administration has drafted legislation, and we will be asking Congress again to provide the legal authority and resources to address this crisis at our borders,” Nielsen said.

The move to militarize the border with National Guard troops — as former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama did during upticks in border crossings — comes at a time when arrests for border crossings are at a record low, according to federal figures. There were more than 310,000 arrests made by border patrol agents in 2017, compared to a high of 1.6 million in 2000, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

Despite the steady decline in border crossings last year, Nielsen said activity along the U.S.-Mexico border has picked up in recent months and is reaching levels comparable to border arrests made during the Obama administration.

“The numbers we’re releasing for March will indicate a staggering increase from last year,” a senior administration official said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “As of last April, we were at historic lows . . . we are no longer at that point.”

Nielsen said troops will be used to aid with surveillance and other supportive roles, but arrests will continue to be made by border patrol agents.

The Republican governors of Texas and Arizona expressed support for the plan on Wednesday, but Trump is likely to face pushback from California’s Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown, who last year signed legislation designating the state a “sanctuary state” that limits state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agencies.

Brown’s office did not immediately return a request by Newsday for comment. A spokesman for Brown told BuzzFeed News the governor’s office only learned of the plan on Wednesday.