Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey plans to keep Arizona National Guard members deployed to the Mexican border for another year.
The Republican governor announced Wednesday that troops that he sent to the border in April will remain deployed. He criticized the Biden Administration for failing to secure the border amid a surge of migrants that began after former President Donald Trump left office.
More than 150 Guard members were deployed to the border in April after Ducey declared a state of emergency due to the high number of migrants crossing into the state from Mexico. The troops are providing logistics and administrative support to local law enforcement, maintaining and monitoring surveillance cameras, doing data analysis, and providing medical care at detention centers. year
The Legislature appropriated $25 million to help pay for the deployment in the budget it passed in June.
The governor sent members of the Guard to help the Border Patrol boost security in April 2018 after a request from then-President Donald Trump. The last troops on that mission left in November 2020, said Major Kyle Key, a Guard spokesman.
That mission was federally funded.
Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
