TRUMP: 2,000 TO 4,000 FOR BORDER

Republican governors of Ariz., N.M., Texas have backed deployment

President Donald Trump says he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to help fight illegal immigration and drug trafficking.

PHOENIX» President Donald Trump said Thursday that he wants to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to help federal officials fight illegal immigration and drug trafficking, but it wasn’t clear who would be called up or if they would be allowed to carry guns.

Trump’s comments to reporters on Air Force One were his first estimate on guard levels he believes are needed for border protection. It is lower than the 6,400 National Guard members that former President George Bush sent to the border from 2006 to 2008.

Trump said his administration is looking into the cost of sending the troops to the border and added “we’ll probably keep them or a large portion of them until the wall is built.”

Earlier Thursday, Ronald Vitiello, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s acting deputy commissioner, cautioned against a rushed deployment.

“We are going to do it as quickly as we can do it safely,” Vitiello told Fox News Channel.

He said that guard members would be placed in jobs that do not require law enforcement work, an apparent reference to undertaking patrols and making arrests.

The Republican governors of Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have backed the deployment, but it was unclear Thursday how Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown would respond to Trump’s call.

Brown’s office referred requests for comment to the California National Guard, which said the state first must be informed about the operation’s objectives, where money for the deployment would come from and how long it would last.

In Washington, Marine Lt. Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie told reporters at the Pentagon that it has not yet been determined how many, if any, of the troops in the border security operation will be armed.

Trump ordered the deployment because “we are at a crisis point” with illegal immigration, Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen of the Department of Homeland Security said.

“We’d like to stop it before the numbers get even bigger,” she said.

Nielsen said guard members would provide support to border officials, “help look at the technology, the surveillance, in some cases we’ll ask for some fleet mechanics” and free up agents trained in law enforcement for other duties.

Arrests along the U.S. border with Mexico jumped to 50,308 in March, a 37 percent increase from February and more than triple the same period last year.