(Source: MIRS.news, Published 04/18/2024) Deploying Michigan National Guard units to Texas to aid its state authorities in managing illegal Mexico-United States border crossings is an action the Legislature's Republican leaders are pushing for, following a recent trip to Eagle Pass, a Texas city adjacent to the river Rio Grande.
Last week, Senate Minority Leader Aric Nesbitt (R-Lawton) and House Minority Leader Matt Hall (R-Kalamazoo) attended a trip hosted by the Texas Department of Public Safety, after Texas State Sen. Phil King, a Republican, invited several out-of-state legislators to discuss how current federal immigration policy impacts their state and resources.
Based on a conversation with Nesbitt and Hall Thursday, the visit to Texas validated their belief that immigration is now a state issue, as the federal government is routinely criticized for being unable to keep up with the rise in encounters at the Mexico-U.S. border.
According to Nesbitt, the two lawmakers were responsible for paying for their flights to Austin, Texas, and then Texas' public safety department oversaw the rest.
Thursday morning, the two Republican leaders hosted a press conference on their visit to Eagle Pass, calling for Michigan's Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 budget to feature a National Guard appropriation for units to assist other state National Guard forces with monitoring the Southwest Border.
"We went down there with other state delegations – state leaders from across the country, many of which have National Guard units down there," Hall said, mentioning how Arkansas, Florida, Indiana, Iowa, Montana and Tennessee are among states with national or state guard units – or both – already assisting Texas authorities.
He said the units are filling the void at portions of the border where President Joe Biden "has dropped the ball."
"They're building fencing across that border with razor wire to deter people from coming across," Hall said. "They're stationing them on the border . . . they're patrolling. That is a deterrent, particularly for the drug cartels that are trying to come across. If you're a drug cartel, are you going to go and try to cross where there's a bunch of Texas and Florida National Guard people? No, you're going to figure something else out."
The press conference referenced Operation Lone Star, which was launched by Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in March 2021, responsible for combating drug and weapon smuggling, as well as illegal entrances by people, at the border.
Abbott's office highlights that the operation has resulted in state law enforcement seizing more than 454 million "lethal doses of fentanyl" as of Jan. 26, and the transportation of migrants to out-of-state cities like Chicago, Denver, New York City and Washington, D.C. since spring 2022.
Reports by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection show that Southwest Land Border encounters – taking place at Mexico's border with California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas – have grown from 1.7 million in FY 2021 to more than 2.47 million in FY '22. Since October 2023, there have been more than 1.34 million encounters, with 189,372 taking place in March. Moreover, the numbers do not account for illegal border crossings that are not detected by immigration officials.
"States now have a responsibility and role to protect our homeland, to protect our people, to protect the citizens…you can see Texas really stepping up. They said it's at least $2 billion a year – sometimes up to $3 billion a year. It's coming out of a Texas state budget that could be going to education, roads, other things…but instead, you're having the problem on the borders," Nesbitt said.
Nesbitt said that what they kept hearing during their trip was that the Biden administration in Washington, D.C. was advising border patrol to "just process them getting through, and there's really no big background checks that were happening."
Hall said the more National Guard personnel that are at the Southwest border, the more area that can be patrolled.
"The goal of this is just to push people to go into the ports of entry. It's dangerous crossing the Rio Grande. It's dangerous trying to climb through razor wire," Hall said. "They can go to those ports of entry, and they can follow the legal process. That's really what the goal of this is…and then they go through that process. They can be identified, they can claim refugee status, and they can go (through proceedings) to determine their eligibility to come into the country."
I witnessed the border crisis firsthand in Texas.
Biden undid the Remain in Mexico policy, so illegal aliens are exploiting the asylum process to stay in our country. Now Whitmer is offering taxpayer-funded benefits to them as they obstruct deportation. pic.twitter.com/REPH8M7V66
— State Representative Matt Hall (@RepMattHall) April 15, 2024
As for Michigan specifically, the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse reports that the immigration court backlog consists of 25,343 individuals as of March of this year, awaiting court dates in relation to being an undocumented immigrant. The number is larger than what it was in 2023, with 17,481 awaiting court dates, and 6,877 waiting during the last year of previous President Donald Trump's administration in 2020.
Additionally, the two called for Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's administration to eliminate undocumented immigrants' access to welfare programs, and for the present Democratic-led Legislature to move bills prohibiting local governments from designating their municipalities as "sanctuary" communities, as well as ramping up penalties for fentanyl distribution and manufacturing.
Thursday's Republican points come after earlier this month, when Whitmer's administration proposed spending $8 million in the incoming state budget to fund attorneys representing asylum seekers in immigration proceedings.
At the same time, Hall has called on the Office of the Auditor General – the Legislature's official review arm – to look into the Governor's Office of Global Michigan's (OMG's) Newcomer Rental Subsidy Program, which distributes up to $500 per month, for up to 12 months, to refugees and other newcomer population-eligible households.
The office itself has provided data demonstrating that nobody with a pending asylum status has obtained any assistance, including stipends through the rental subsidy program. However, Hall's office is concerned that while the OMG has shared some of its non-public data points with the media, they are still awaiting questions they sent to OMG Executive Director Poppy Sias Hernandez via a letter. MIRS was told that Hall's office was informed they would receive details regarding their questions by early April, and still had not acquired anything as of Thursday.
Furthermore, the office says on its website that eligibility for the housing program can be extended to “other immigrant individuals on a case-by-case scenario.”
The media also spoke with Sen. Kevin Hertel (D-St. Clair Shores), the chair of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee overseeing military and veterans affairs. On Tuesday, it adopted a more than $17 million budget recommendation for FY '25, including $300,000 for a new Michigan Army National Guard Soldier Referral Program, offering $1,000 bonuses to department personnel who refer a soldier who enlists in Michigan's Guard.
In February, when Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced it would be deploying its own National Guard to Texas, the Indiana National Guard disclosed it was anticipating to spend at least $7.1 million deploying 50 soldiers to the U.S-Mexico border for up to 10 months. Based on the WFYI report in Indiana, if Michigan were to similarly send 50 soldiers to the Southwest border, expected expenditures could account for around 41.5 percent of the military and veterans affairs budget that Hertel is recommending.
"If we look at the overall issue, what should be happening today is that Congress should be passing real immigration reform, modernizing our immigration reform here in the country . . . because clearly the laws that exist today are not good enough," Hertel said. "But what are we seeing in Congress happening? We're seeing these sideshows and political fights and an inability to get anything done, so I get that they're gonna keep making noise and trying to make this a state issue here in Michigan."
He said any deployment is a huge financial lift that puts the men and women of Michigan's National Guard at risk. He added that there are guardsmen and women who have been deployed all over the world to assist in missions.
"So, is the border critical? Yes. Is that expense worth it? I think that's a conversation for the general to have with his national partners," Hertel said, adding that Republicans "are trying to find every opportunity they can to politicize this issue. I think that's disingenuous to what actually needs to occur to the people that are actually impacted by what's occurring at the border."
The governor can activate the Michigan Army National Guard for the purpose of protecting "the lives and property of Michigan citizens during state emergencies," ranging from winter storms to civil disturbances. Meanwhile, the President can request the activation of an individual state's National Guard in national emergency situations.
As of Dec. 31, 2022, Michigan was home to 20,892 National Guard and reserve members, as well as 9,333 of their spouses and 14,208 of their children.
