White House Denies Report it Might Call up National Guard for Immigration Roundup
February 17th, 2017This is what I wrote on election day:
The thing about Trump that scares the crap out of me the most is his pledge to round up people who are in the U.S. illegally. I’m very much for securing the border. I’m not for mass arrests. Danger. Danger. Red flag.
What’s he going to do? Deploy the U.S. Marines to places like Santa Ana and wide swaths of Los Angeles County?
Good luck with that.
For the moment, they’re saying troops won’t be used.
If they do decide to use military force at some point, you will want to already be long gone, whether you are in the U.S. illegally or not.
Via: AP:
President Donald Trump’s administration is considering mobilizing as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants, according to The Associated Press. The Trump administration strongly denied the report Friday morning.
A draft memo obtained by The Associated Press outlines a Trump administration proposal under consideration to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants. Millions of those who would be affected in 11 states live nowhere near the Mexico border.
The 11-page document calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana. If the proposal is implemented, governors in the affected states would have final approval on whether troops under their control participate.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters that the AP report is not true.
“That is 100 percent not true. It is false. It is irresponsible to be saying this. There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants,” Spicer said.
“I don’t know what could potentially be out there, but I know that there is no effort to do what is potentially suggested,” he said. “It is not a White House document.”
Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.
While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with immigration-related missions on the U.S.-Mexico border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north.
The memo is addressed to the then-acting heads of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It would serve as guidance to implement the wide-ranging executive order on immigration and border security that President Donald Trump signed Jan. 25. Such memos are routinely issued to supplement executive orders.
