Governor Hutchinson is considering a request by Texas and Arizona governors to deploy state troopers for Mexican border security.
Said Shealyn Sowers, his communications director:
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Arizona and Texas sent a formal request for support. We are evaluating our resources and technical issues. At this time, no Arkansas state troopers have been sent to the border and there are no current plans to do so.
The cost — personnel, travel, accommodations, meals — isn’t known. Nor is it clear how the deployment would affect the performance of duties in-state.
At least four other Republican states have agreed to send troopers, from two dozen to 30, for two-week deployments.
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Iowa became the latest state to announce a willingness to send troopers. Governor Kim Reynolds said it would contribute to the protection of Iowans because ill effects of illegal crossings — drug smuggling and human trafficking — eventually reach Iowa. The specific mission is unclear.
Abbott and Doug Ducey of Arizona requested help under an interstate compact to provide mutual aid in emergencies. Nebraska, Florida and Idaho — all led by Republicans — have agreed. News reports say they sent letters to all governors June 10.
There has been an increase in migrants reaching the U.S. border, but most are being turned away. The U.S. has been accepting children and some families, which has, in turn, prompted criticism of crowding of border facilities and holding children for longer than 72 hours.
The call for troopers, led prominently by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, is intended as a political attack on the Biden administration. Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts, for example, cited a rise in border crossings this year in defending his deployment. But the AP noted
U.S. Customs and Border Protection recorded more than 180,000 encounters on the Mexican border in May, the most since March 2000. But the numbers were boosted by a pandemic-related ban on seeking asylum, which encouraged repeated attempts to cross the border because getting caught carried no legal consequences.
Critics questioned the need to send Nebraska law enforcement agents to the border.
Rose Godinez, a legal and policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nebraska, said federal officials have more than enough resources to patrol the border.
“We see this as an effort by Gov. Ricketts to politicize this issue,” Godinez said.
She said the border crossings are a symptom of the federal government’s failure for years to pass broader changes to the U.S. immigration system.
“It adds to the question of why the state patrol is needed down there,” she said. “This is not the best use of their time.”
The mission of the troopers being sent remains unclear.
Abbott has claimed a fentanyl smuggling crisis in his decision to send 1,000 National Guard and troops to the border. He’s also proposed that Texas pay to build more border walls. Texas Monthly reports that border residents say the deployed troops are more of a nuisance than an effective crime-fighting force. Anecdote:
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Twice a week, Terence Garrett drives the same stretch of Texas Highway 48 from his home in Laguna Vista to the University of Texas–Rio Grande Valley in Brownsville, where he chairs the Department of Public Affairs and Security Studies. The 35-minute drive gives him a chance to take account of the ebbs and flows of border security, which he ponders while listening to Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and other jazz favorites. Over the past decade, the presence of state law enforcement has grown from a smattering of black-and-white DPS vehicles to a near-ubiquitous army of troopers—part of a Texas-ification of border enforcement that costs taxpayers about $500 million a year.
One day in the fall of 2019, a DPS trooper stopped Garrett. The official reason: he was going 3 miles over the 65-miles-per-hour speed limit, but the trooper, apparently bored and lonely, confided that the infraction was really an excuse for human interaction. “He told me he just wanted somebody to talk to—seriously, this happened,” Garrett said. The trooper mentioned that he was from the Dallas area and inquired about the University of Oklahoma sticker on Garrett’s car. They chatted about Oklahoma’s rivalry with the University of Texas and about the Dallas Cowboys. The conversation was brief and friendly, and the trooper let him off with a warning. For Garrett, the interaction was an amusing confirmation of his view that the DPS deployments amount to an expensive show of force that targets residents of the Rio Grande Valley rather than smugglers and unauthorized immigrants. The latest show of force by the DPS began on March 4, when Governor Greg Abbott announced Operation Lone Star, sending a thousand state troopers to the Texas borderlands to “to deny Mexican Cartels and other smugglers the ability to move drugs and people into Texas.”
Border security special operations are a political staple in Texas.
The Link LonkFor the current operation, Abbott blamed the Biden administration’s “open border policies” for causing what he called a humanitarian crisis. Garrett said the true motive is simpler than that: “It’s political theater. That’s why we began hearing about a crisis on the border after President Biden’s inauguration when, in fact, there isn’t one.”
June 26, 2021 at 11:33PM
https://arktimes.com/arkansas-blog/2021/06/26/arkansas-asked-to-send-state-troopers-for-mexican-border-duty-hutchinson-evaluating
Arkansas asked to send state troopers for Mexican border duty; Hutchinson 'evaluating' - Arkansas Times
https://news.google.com/search?q=Send&hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US:en
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