30 Dems urge Brown to recall troops

SACRAMENTO — Thirty Democratic state lawmakers sent a letter to Gov. Jerry Brown on Monday urging him to recall California National Guard troops from the southern border in protest of the Trump administration’s “inhumane, disorganized and immoral” handling of immigrant children and their parents.

The letter adds 29 signatures to a call last week by state Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, to have Brown pull the troops he sent to the border in April at President Trump’s request. In allowing 400 Guard troops to be deployed, Brown stipulated that the service members could not enforce immigration laws and would instead work on existing efforts to target gangs, smuggling and trafficking at the border.

Brown’s office said Monday that because of the limited scope of the mission, the governor had no plans to remove the Guard troops. But a spokesman added, “We’ll continue to assess and review this just as we have since personnel were originally mobilized back in April.”

Trump has faced backlash globally over a policy that separated children from their parents at the border so the adults could be detained and prosecuted for entering the country illegally.

Last week, Trump reversed course and issued an executive order ending the separations, but that raised questions about how children will be detained with their parents. In addition, some 2,000 children previously separated from their parents have not yet been reunited with them.

“We too reject these callous, insensitive policies,” said Brown spokesman Evan Westrup.

De León, who is trying to unseat fellow Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein in the November election, and the 26 Democratic lawmakers said keeping the California National Guard involved with border security frees up federal resources for carrying out the Trump administration’s policies.

Among those signing the letter were Democratic Sens. Scott Wiener of San Francisco, Nancy Skinner of Berkeley and Bob Wieckowski of Fremont, and Democratic Assemblyman Tony Thurmond of Richmond.

“In this dark chapter of American history, California should not play any part in the irreparable trauma” inflicted on children, the lawmakers wrote in the letter to Brown.

Governors in Maryland, Massachusetts and Virginia have pulled back their National Guard troops, although they collectively had just a handful at the border.

“Under this administration, ensuring public safety takes a backseat to sowing racial discord,” said de León, who authored last year’s state sanctuary law limiting local law enforcement’s cooperation with federal immigration agents. That law is the target of a Trump administration lawsuit.