No plan to use National Guard vs illegal immigrants
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — The White House on Friday said there was no plan to utilize the National Guard to round up unauthorized immigrants, after a news report asserted that the proposal had been under consideration by the Trump administration.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer told reporters he couldn’t categorically say the move had never been discussed anywhere in the administration.
The Associated Press reported the proposal to mobilize up to 100,000 National Guard troops was part of a draft memo being circulated at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Spicer sharply criticized the report saying, “There is no effort at all to ... utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants. This is 100 percent not true.”
David Lapan, a spokesman for DHS, said the department was “not considering mobilizing the National Guard for immigration enforcement.”
The AP said the draft memo, dated Jan. 25, had been circulating among DHS staff for about two weeks and was addressed to the then-acting heads of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and US Customs and Border Protection.
It reported that the 11-page document called for an unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement on the states bordering Mexico — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — and also encompassed seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.