Darren Lyn
27 January 2024•Update: 27 January 2024
HOUSTON, United States
Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt on Friday announced that he is sending his state's National Guard to help Texas with border control problems along the US-Mexico border.
"This is just common sense. In Texas, there’s 28 ports of entry and it’s already a federal law that it’s illegal to enter anywhere but those points of entry," Stitt said in an interview with Fox News.
The move comes after former President Donald Trump on Thursday called for Republican-led states to band together to combat the illegal immigration problem along the southern border, an issue Republicans have said that President Joe Biden is failing to handle properly.
"We encourage all willing States to deploy their guards to Texas to prevent the entry of Illegals, and to remove them back across the Border," Trump said, citing the "invasion" of migrants coming into the US.
After Trump's plea for assistance, Republican governors from 25 states (half of the 50 states) pledged their support to Texas.
“We stand in solidarity with our fellow Governor, Greg Abbott, and the State of Texas in utilizing every tool and strategy, including razor wire fences, to secure the border," the Republican Governors Association said in a statement. "We do it in part because the Biden Administration is refusing to enforce immigration laws already on the books and is illegally allowing mass parole across America of migrants who entered our country illegally."
With Trump and his Republican governor counterparts basically drawing the line in the sand in a faceoff with the Biden administration, many critics have suggested this could be a civil war in the making.
Stitt alluded to that suggestion making reference that there is a "powder keg worth of tension" regarding the border issues in Texas.
“And so the fact that the federal government, Biden, is cutting the razor wire, it just makes no sense at all," said the Oklahoma governor. "So, yes, we have the right to defend our country against invasion. And what else would you call it if you’ve got 6 million people coming through illegally?"
Stitt had previously sent the Oklahoma National Guard to help with the illegal immigration problems in Texas. Virginia's National Guard was also sent to Texas last year to help with the border crisis.
Trump's call for Republican-led states to pledge allegiance to Texas came amid calls from that state's Democratic leaders asking the Biden administration to federalize the Texas National Guard in order to prevent them from installing more barbed wire fencing, according to multiple media outlets. The Supreme Court ruled that the federal government's constitutional power superseded the state's power to remove barbed wire along the southern border.
This game of cat and mouse continued to fester after the Department of Justice sued Texas for its tactics to keep immigrants from illegally entering the US, including using floating river barriers and putting up barbed wire barricades. Despite the US Border Patrol being instructed to take down the barbed wire, the Texas National Guard continued to install more.
“The authors of the U.S. Constitution made clear that in times like this, states have a right of self-defense," said the Republican Governors Association. "Because the Biden Administration has abdicated its constitutional compact duties to the states, Texas has every legal justification to protect the sovereignty of our states and our nation."
