NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Tennessee will deploy two waves of National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border through the spring as Republican governors across the country back Texas in its ongoing feud with federal authorities over immigration enforcement.
Gov. Bill Lee met with deploying National Guard members in Millington, Tennessee, on Saturday, weeks after the governor traveled to the border and pledged to support Texas Gov. Greg Abbott with an escalating and increasingly politicized border crisis. Abbott has been backed by almost all U.S. Republican governors, who signed a statement in January saying Texas has the constitutional right to defend itself.
“Gov. Abbott has made the decision to utilize Texas’ resources to secure that border and to keep that traffic from coming into his state,” Lee said on Saturday. “But it’s an overwhelming task, and he asked governors to join him because each one of us recognizes that.”
The Texas National Guard earlier this year seized control of a popular border crossing in Eagle Pass, and Texas began blocking federal immigration officials and Border Patrol agents from the area. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the state could not block federal access, upholding longstanding precedent that the federal government, not states, control border enforcement.
Texas has been in a monthslong standoff with the federal government over the record-high number of unauthorized migrant crossings, which Abbott formally declared an “invasion” in January.
The Texas governor and Republicans have repeatedly used inflammatory language to describe the tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and other migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border. Those seeking asylum typically turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents between ports of entry. Other migrants, including many from Mexico, try to sneak in and evade border agents.
