California Governor Jerry Brown has agreed to send troops to the border, but not for immigration control. The democratic governor made that point “crystal clear” when he said the state’s troops would join the national guard per President Donald Trump’s request, but only to aid in drug and sex trafficking control:
“This will not be a mission to build a new wall,” Brown wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis. “It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. And the California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws.”
Brown has committed to sending 400 guard personnel to add to Trump’s National Guard to protect the border. Arizona, New Mexico and Texas were only too eager to provide troops to help control the illegal immigration seeping into their areas, and agreed immediately to do so after Trump requested help to seal up the southern border. California, on the other hand, took a week to decide, and then Brown pointed out, pouting as always, that they were not doing so to benefit or aid the federal government in anyway.
Despite the fact that a caravan of more than 1,000 Honduran immigrants were headed to the U.S.-Mexico border recently, as Liberty Nation’s Leesa K. Donner reported, Brown claimed there is not a “massive wave of migrants pouring into California,” the L.A. Times stated:
“Here are the facts: there is no massive wave of migrants pouring into California,” the governor wrote to Nielsen and Mattis. “Overall immigrant apprehensions on the border last year were as low as they’ve been in nearly 50 years (and 85 percent of the apprehensions occurred outside of California).”
A few possible reasons for lower immigrant apprehensions come to mind:
- The statement may not be true. Brown did not provide statistics to back up the claim.
- If less immigrants are trying to cross the border, that could be a direct result of Trump’s hard policies against illegal immigrants.
- Perhaps less are being caught because California has made it a sanctuary state, thereby inviting immigrants to cross while restricting its law enforcement from aiding in immigration control.
SB 54
, the “Sanctuary Law” that went into effect January 1, restricts California’s state and local authorities from aiding the federal government in immigration control. If that isn’t a flashing beacon calling immigrants from all over, I don’t know what is.
But Brown acts like the president’s request is something new and horrible. In truth, Trump is the third consecutive president to request troops to protect the border from illegal immigrant surges. While Trump is requesting between 2,000 and 4,000 individuals, in 2010 former president Obama sent 1,200 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, and in 2006, former president George W. Bush sent 6,400. Brown is only sending 400, but former CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger provided 1,000.
Brown knows he needs to do something to help protect his state from the crime crossing the border in droves, but he doesn’t want to give an inch, or anything resembling cooperation to the president. But we all know that once the soldiers are with the national guard, immigration control will be part of the agenda.
