Arizona, Texas send 400 troops to border

Trump signs memo ending ‘catch and release’

AUSTIN, Texas, April 7, (Agencies): Arizona and Texas announced Friday that they would send 400 National Guard members to the US-Mexico border by next week in response to President Donald Trump’s call for troops to fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Arizona Gov Doug Ducey said about 150 Guard members would deploy next week. And the Texas National Guard said it was already sending Guardsmen to the border, with plans to place 250 troops there in the next 72 hours as an “initial surge,” according to a Guard spokesman. Two helicopters lifted off Friday night from Austin, the state capital, to head south.

The total so far remains well short of the 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members that Trump told reporters he wants to send. New Mexico Gov Susana Martinez’s office said Friday that it had not yet deployed any Guard members. The office of California Gov Jerry Brown did not respond to questions about whether it would deploy troops.

Trump’s proclamation Wednesday directing the use of National Guard troops refers to Title 32, a federal law under which Guard members remain under the command and control of their state’s governor. This leaves open the possibility that California’s Brown could turn him down.

Defense Secretary James Mattis Friday night approved paying for up to 4,000 National Guard personnel from the Pentagon budget through the end of September. A Defense Department memo says the National Guard personnel will not perform law enforcement functions or “interact with migrants or other persons detained” without Mattis’s approval. It said “arming will be limited to circumstances that might require self-defense,” but it did not further define that.

Deployments to the border under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama both occurred under Title 32. Bush sent around 6,000 troops in 2006, and Obama sent 1,200 Guard members in 2010.

Trump’s proclamation blamed “the lawlessness that continues at our southern border.” Trump has suggested he wants to use the military on the border until progress is made on his proposed border wall, which has mostly stalled in Congress.

Border

After plunging at the start of Trump’s presidency, the numbers of migrants apprehended at the southwest border have started to rise in line with historical trends. The Border Patrol said it caught around 50,000 people in March, more than three times the number in March 2017. That’s erased a decline for which Trump repeatedly took credit. Border apprehensions still remain well below the numbers when Bush and Obama deployed the Guard to the border.

News reports of a caravan of Central American migrants passing through southern Mexico also sparked angry tweets from the president. The caravan of largely Central American migrants never intended to reach the US border, according to organizer Irineo Mujica. But Trump has repeatedly cited it as an example of what he called America’s weak immigration laws.

Meanwhile, Trump signed a memorandum on Friday ordering the end of a policy, known as “catch and release,” in which illegal immigrants are released from detention while awaiting a court hearing on their status.

As part of the memo, Trump asked Defense Secretary Jim Mattis to produce a list of military facilities that could be used to detain illegal immigrants.

In related news, a federal immigration raid that took 97 people into custody at a Tennessee meat processing plant may be the biggest employment crackdown under President Donald Trump’s administration, civil rights activists said Friday.

Eleven people were arrested on criminal charges and 86 were detained for being in the country illegally, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Tammy Spicer said in a statement Friday.

The Thursday raid on Southeastern Provision, a meat processing plant in Bean Station in eastern Tennessee, is the largest single worksite immigration enforcement action since the administration of President George W. Bush, said Jessie Hahn, labor and employment policy attorney at the National Immigration Law Center.

“This is part of the stepped-up Trump mass deportation enforcement agenda for sure,” Hahn said.

The current administration has promised to crack down on employers who hire immigrants living in the country illegally, and several raids have taken place across the country. A total of 21 people were arrested after immigration agents raided 7-11 stores nationwide in January.

Example

A Tennessee activist said the processing plant raid is another example of the emphasis on enforcement.

“What we saw here, while it is the largest and certainly credibly egregious raid, it does fit in the larger practice and patterns of the Trump administration of targeting workers, indiscriminately arresting immigrants and really terrorizing communities across the country,” said Stephanie Teatro, co-executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Spicer declined to confirm whether it is largest workplace raid under the current president.

Officials with ICE, Homeland Security, the IRS Criminal Investigation Division and the Tennessee Highway Patrol executed a federal search warrant on the meat processing plant Thursday morning, Spicer said. During the search, Homeland Security officials encountered 97 people who are subject to removal from the US, she said. Ten workers were arrested on federal criminal charges, and another was arrested on a state charge. Of the 86 people arrested and placed in deportation proceedings, ICE kept 54 in detention and released 32 from custody, Spicer said.

An affidavit filed with the search warrant and signed by a special agent with the IRS says the government has probable cause to believe that the company and its owners have committed tax evasion and are employing immigrants in the country illegally. An undercover police officer was hired at the company using a false name and he was paid in cash, the affidavit filed by IRS Special Agent Nicholas Worsham said.

Court records say James Brantley is the president of the business and his wife, Pamela, is listed as an employee. Public records do not list their phone number. The Associated Press left phone and email messages with company but they were not returned.

Several children had both parents placed in detention and many did not show up for school Friday because of fear in the immigrant community, Teatro said.

Many of the people employed at the plant had worked there for years and are long-standing members of this rural community, she said.