Sign up for TPR Today, Texas Public Radio's newsletter that brings our top stories to your inbox each morning.
More than 300 Texas National Guard troops will arrive in Laredo to assist U.S. Border Patrol with immigration enforcement.
Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that the state had signed an agreement with the federal government authorizing National Guard soldiers on state orders to make immigration arrests.
Laredo Sector Chief Agent Jesse Muñoz told the Laredo Morning Times the state troops will work under the direct supervision of the Border Patrol.
They're expected to arrive within a month.
The announcement came days after the Pentagon announced the deployment of an additional 1,500 troops to the border.
The Associated Press reported that a logistics brigade from the 18th Airborne Corps at Fort Liberty in North Carolina would be mobilized to support the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
About 500 Marines were also sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to prepare for an influx of migrants.
For years, Abbott had tried unsuccessfully to deputize state and local law enforcement to make immigration arrests, something the Trump administration now supports.
Joseph Nunn, council at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, said earlier in February that the agreement may fall under a federal law that permits state and local law enforcement to assist with immigration enforcement.
However, Nunn added that the federal statute does not specify the use of state guard for such a purpose, and he questions the legality of the MOU.
"This is a law enforcement issue. This is not a military problem," Nunn said. "Soldiers, including the Texas National Guard, are trained to be soldiers. They're not trained to be immigration enforcement agents."
Nunn expressed concern at the military being used more at the border, something he and other civil rights advocates have challenged.
"The continued use of military personnel for immigration enforcement and the expansion of that use presents a lot of problems," Nunn explained. "It continues to be a drain on military resources and a distraction from the military's core national security responsibilities."
Immigration attorney Kate Lincoln-Goldfinch said it remains the duty of Congress to pass immigration reform.
"This is a nation that actually has a need for immigrant labor on all levels of the skill spectrum. And if we could have Congress pass immigration reform that would respond to the needs of our economy, things would calm down around immigration everywhere," she explained. "But until we get that immigration reform, we're going to be continuing to see more money spent and more stories about enforcement when it's not even the answer to all of this."
Gabriella Alcorta-Solorio contributed to this report.
