By Jennifer Epstein | Bloomberg News
Over
1000 people from Central America are walking in a caravan through Mexico to the
United States.
- President
says ‘drastic illegal activity’ gives him no choice
- Memorandum
does not say how many troops will be called up
President Donald Trump is
sending National Guard forces to assist border authorities along the
U.S.-Mexico boundary, according to a presidential memorandum that the White
House released Wednesday night.
“The
situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis,” Trump said in the
memorandum. “The lawlessness that continues at our southern border is
fundamentally incompatible with the safety, security, and sovereignty of the
American people. My administration has no choice but to act.”
The
president said that the nation’s security was under threat from “drastic
illegal activity,” including drug smuggling. He also cited the threat of gangs,
included MS-13. “The anticipated rapid rise in illegal crossings as we head
into the spring and summer months threatens to overwhelm our Nation’s law
enforcement capacities,” Trump wrote.
The
memorandum did not say how many National Guard troops would be sent to the
border or for how long. Trump said he was directing Defense Secretary Jim
Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, in coordination with
Attorney General Jeff Sessions, to come up with “an action plan” within 30
days.
The move followed Trump’s warning Tuesday
to Mexican leaders that he would abandon the North American Free Trade
Agreement without assurances of help on securing the border. Nielsen said
earlier Wednesday that her department saw dangerous levels of illegal
immigration and drug-trafficking across the border.
She
said the National Guard troops would act as “support” for border patrol agents.
She added they would be called up under a law that provides federal financing
for the guard units’ deployment costs but permits the state governor to retain
control of the troops.
“Our Border Laws are very weak
while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong,” Trump said Wednesday in a
Twitter posting.
“Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW! The Democrats stand
in our way - they want people to pour into our country unchecked....CRIME! We
will be taking strong action today.”
New
Mexico Senator Tom Udall, a Democrat, criticized the deployment as an
“offensive effort to militarize the border” and “another pitiful attempt to
distract attention from the dangerous chaos the president is creating.”
“Smart
border technology and more customs officers would be a much more effective and
efficient security investment, that would also benefit our economy and
relations with Mexico,” Udall said in a statement emailed to reporters.
Trump
was briefed Tuesday on his administration’s border strategy by Nielsen, Mattis,
Sessions, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford, Chief
of Staff John Kelly and other senior officials, White House Press Secretary
Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement.
Curbs on Asylum
A
senior White House official also said the Trump administration was crafting
legislation to make it harder for refugees to gain asylum in the U.S. and
loosen restrictions on undocumented immigrants apprehended near the border.
Trump
has previously suggested that he could use money allocated for the U.S.
military to construct the border wall for which he has so far been unable to
secure congressional funding.
Since
the weekend, Trump has been tweeting and talking about border security
following reports that more than 1,000 Central Americans, most from Honduras,
are traveling north toward the U.S.’s southern border with the help of Pueblo
Sin Fronteras, a group that has organized several similar “refugee caravans” in
recent years.
Trump
has faced pressure from immigration hawks to show that he remains committed to
their cause after signing a government spending bill last month that fell far
short of the goals he’d set for new border wall construction this year.
The
Defense Department has in the past helped the Department of Homeland Security
with border security measures, and George W. Bush and Barack Obama both
deployed National Guard troops to the border during their presidencies to
bolster security. Obama announced in May 2010 that as many as 1,200 national
guard troops would help patrol fenced areas of the border, in addition to extra
customs and border agents.
American
law may also restrict how much the military can do to carry out Trump’s wishes.
The late-19th century Posse Comitatus Act is viewed as prohibiting the use of
the military to execute domestic laws, according to a 2013 report by the
Congressional Research Service.
— With assistance by Terrence Dopp, Roxana Tiron,
and Erik Wasson
