Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Heading for the border
Arizona National Guard soldiers receive their reporting paperwork Monday before deployment to the Mexican border at the Papago Park Military Reservation in Phoenix.
PHOENIX — Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said Monday that 338 members of the state’s National Guard are being sent to the U.S.-Mexico border to support President Donald Trump’s call for troops to fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
More of the state’s Guard members will be deployed today, but Ducey, a Republican, did not say how many.
Ducey said the manpower is needed to stop “the flow of criminals, narcotics, weapons and ammunition that is being trafficked into our state.”
The Arizona troops were being sent after Texas announced Friday it would send 1,000 National Guard members and helicopters took the first of those soldiers to the border.
Last week, Trump said he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members to the southwestern border until progress is made on his proposed border wall, which has mostly stalled in Congress.
A Defense Department memo said the National Guard members will not perform law enforcement functions or “interact with migrants or other persons detained” without the approval of Defense Secretary James Mattis.
New Mexico’s Republican governor, Susana Martinez, has said her state would take part in the operation but no announcement has been made on deployment. California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, has not said if his state’s Guard members will participate.