The Latest: Trump administration welcomes California troops
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on President Donald Trump’s effort to send up to 4,000 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking (all times local):
1:45 p.m.
The spokeswoman for President Donald Trump has welcomed the decision by California’s Democrat governor to deploy 400 National Guard troops for a presidential request aimed at fighting illegal immigration and drug trafficking along the U.S.-Mexico border.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders says the Trump administration is “glad to see California Gov. Jerry Brown work with the administration and send members of the national guard to help secure the southern border.”
Brown did not say how many of the California troops might actually head to the border.
He says they will not “round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life.”
Trump wants up to 4,000 troops sent to the border.
He has already won commitments for about 1,600 from the Republican governors of the other states that border Mexico— Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
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1:10 p.m.
California Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to deploy 400 National Guard troops at President Donald Trump’s request, but not all will head to the U.S.-Mexico border as Trump wants and none will enforce federal immigration enforcement.
Instead, the Democrat Brown said Wednesday the troops would join an existing program to combat transnational drug crime, firearms smuggling and human trafficking. They would join 250 existing California National Guard troops, including 55 who are at the border.
Trump wants up to 4,000 troops sent to the border to combat illegal immigration and drug trafficking and has already won commitments for about 1,600 from the Republican governors of the other states that border Mexico — Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
The California Guard members may be deployed at the border, the coast and elsewhere statewide, Brown said.
The federal government must agree to the terms before the troops would be deployed.
California deployed troops to the border under former Presidents George W. Bush in 2006 and Barack Obama in 2010.
