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The governor says Trump's plan to militarize the border is wrongheaded and a distraction.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown doesn't think much of Donald Trump's plan to send National Guard troops to the Mexican border to stop the flow of unauthorized immigrants into the U.S.
"If @realDonaldTrump asks me to deploy Oregon Guard troops to the Mexico border, I'll say no. As Commander of Oregon's Guard, I'm deeply troubled by Trump's plan to militarize our border," Brown tweeted Wednesday.
Trump signed a memo Wednesday providing for the deployment of National Guard members to the U.S. border with Mexico, but details have yet to be finalized, CNN reports, although today he estimated the number of troops needed at 2,000 to 4,000. He said he has been in touch with governors of southwestern states, and it appears unlikely that Oregon's National Guard would be called out, as it is neither a southern nor northern border state.
Nonetheless, Brown made her opposition to the deployment clear in a series of tweets. A Democrat, Brown is the nation's first and only out bisexual governor.
\u201cThere\u2019s been no outreach by the President or federal officials, and I have no intention of allowing Oregon\u2019s guard troops to be used to distract from his troubles in Washington.\u201d— Governor Kate Brown (@Governor Kate Brown) 1522878115
Trump's Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, said Wednesday that the troops would be necessary to secure the border. Crossings by unauthorized immigrants had been at a historic low point (and, contrary to Trump's alarmism on the issue, unauthorized immigration in general has been declining for several years), but there was a spike in crossings in March. Crossings are generally high in the spring, but the figure for last month was three times that of March 2017.
Trump has also made much of "caravans" of migrants from Central America through Mexico, saying they create a danger to the U.S. However, there is only one caravan, and it is "actually a planned, annual procession of migrants fleeing violence in Central America organized by Pueblo Sin Fronteras," NBC News reports. "Some of the migrants planned to seek asylum in the U.S. as they were fleeing extreme violence in their home countries -- and they would have been stopped or apprehended at the border accordingly, immigration experts said." Trump tweeted Thursday that the caravan had broken up and took credit for it, but organizers said that while some migrants had dropped out, others would continue the journey, USA Today reports.
The governors of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, who are all Republicans, expressed support for deployment of National Guard troops, according to CNN. A spokesman for California Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, told NBC News the governor was reviewing the request for deployment.
Kate Brown, no relation to Jerry, isn't alone in her criticism of Trump's plan. "There's nothing that I see right now happening on the U.S.-Mexico border that would constitute an insurrection," said retired Adm. James Winnefeld, who was vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Barack Obama, told CBS News this week, adding, "If the president tried to use military forces in an inappropriate way... he would be violating federal law."
National Guard troops are part-time soldiers who operate under either state or federal control, but only state-controlled troops can be deployed to enforce domestic law, NBC News notes. When Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush sent guard members to assist the Border Patrol, they did not act as law enforcement personnel and had no authority to detain immigrants, CBS reports.
