Five Pennsylvania Republican members of Congress are urging Gov. Tom Wolf to help the Trump Administration’s immigration enforcement efforts by sending National Guard troops to the Mexican border.
Wolf on Tuesday dismissed the request as a “stunt” in a radio interview and a spokesman for the governor said the Trump Administration has not even asked for Pennsylvania to provide National Guard troops for border protection.
In the letter, dated May 22, the U.S. representatives said that the president has “stated he needs additional manpower at the southern border to gain control of the current situation,” and added “it is our position that Pennsylvania should lend to the president as many National Guard troops as possible until the crisis is resolved.”
The letter was signed by John Joyce, Guy Reschenthaler, Lloyd Smucker, Scott Perry and Mike Kelly.
Wolf, in the Tuesday morning interview with KDKA, a Pittsburgh radio station, called the request a stunt and that National Guard troops may be needed closer to home.
“Here in Pennsylvania we’re going into flooding season, we use the National Guard,” said Wolf. The decision to send the National Guard anywhere is a very, very important, serious decision. You’re breaking up families.”
Pennsylvania troops assisted in disaster relief in Texas, Florida and Puerto Rico last year. In addition, 500 members of a Pennsylvania National Guard squadron based in Danville are now deployed to Poland to support NATO efforts there.
The Republican members of Congress said that the situation at the southern border is a crisis that requires Pennsylvania’s help.
“In April, more than 109,000 undocumented immigrants crossed the border. Around 98,000 of those 109,000 migrants were apprehended between ports of entry. On March 26, U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained more than 4,100 migrants in one day, the highest such total in a decade,” they wrote.
U.S. Congressman-elect Fred Keller, the former state Rep. from the 85th District, acknowledged that the decision was Wolf's to make, but said "we must recognize that we are experiencing a crisis at our southern border that needs addressed. I join my colleagues in urging Congress and the governor to support the president’s efforts to secure our border.”
Wolf’s spokesman J.J. Abbott dismissed the congressmen’s arguments as “hyperbole to further a political agenda that seeks to demonize peaceful asylum seekers, many of whom are children, elderly and women.”
Wolf previously said he wouldn’t allow Pennsylvania National Guard troopers to participate in activities that include separating children from their parents.
“Wolf has no plans to proactively send troops away from their homes and families just to further a political goal. PA Guard troops will be prioritized for needs at home or states facing real natural disasters or emergencies,” Abbott said.
Wolf is far from alone in being resistant to providing National Guard troops to help with border security.
Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, opposed Trump Administration plans to lean on National Guard troops to help with immigrant enforcement efforts at the Mexican border, according to Governing Magazine, a Washington, D.C.-based publication focusing on state and local political policies across the country. Sandoval decided there was no "appropriate mission definition" to justify sending troops, his spokeswoman, Mary-Sarah Kinner told Governing.
Other governors, including Republicans Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, Ralph Northam of Virginia and Larry Hogan of Maryland, said they were not going to provide troops at the border last June in light of revelations about the family separation practices being employed by federal immigration enforcement agencies, according to The Associated Press.
