The Governors of South Dakota and Iowa recently announced that they will be sending law enforcement personnel to the U.S.–Mexico border. It comes after the governors of Texas and Arizona asked all other governors to help with the ongoing border crisis after effectively being abandoned by the federal government.
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem said late Monday that she will be sending members of the South Dakota National Guard to the southern border. Gov. Noem tweeted:
Tomorrow morning I’m officially announcing up to 50 National Guard troops to Texas to help secure our border. The Biden administration has failed to keep America safe. We shouldn’t be making our own communities vulnerable by sending police to fix Biden’s border crisis.
Noem’s announcement comes just days after the office of Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds announced that Iowa State Patrol officers will be deployed to help with border security efforts. Gov. Reynolds stated:
My first responsibility is to the health and safety of Iowans and the humanitarian crisis at our nation’s southern border is affecting all 50 states.
The rise in drugs, human trafficking, and violent crime has become unsustainable. Iowa has no choice but to act, and it’s why I am honoring Texas’s Emergency Management Assistance Compact following assurances from the Iowa Department of Public Safety that it will not compromise our ability to provide all necessary public safety services to Iowans.
Reynolds’s office also acknowledged that dozens of Iowa National Guard soldiers have and currently are carrying out a mission to help law enforcement at the southern border since a request by President Trump in October 2020.
South Dakota and Iowa now join Florida, Nebraska, Georgia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Idaho in committing to send law enforcement to the southern border to help Texas and Arizona.
The Epoch Times reports that Govs. Abbott and Ducey’s letter asserted that under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, any officers that states send to Texas or Arizona will be given “the same power … duties, rights, and privileges as are afforded forces of the state in which they are performing emergency services,” which will “include the power to arrest migrants who illegally cross the border into our territory.”
For the full story, please visit the Epoch Times.
