Arizona Republican Rep. Dave Schweikert is calling for thousands of troops to be sent to states bordering Mexico to deal with the large influx of undocumented immigrants.
“The drastic increase of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) being apprehended and detained by federal agents along our southwestern border is causing resources to be diverted away from other Department of Homeland Security (DHS) missions,” Schweikert said Tuesday. “This diversion is stretching the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) thin and causing a troubling impact on our national security.”
“That is unacceptable,” he added.
The border state lawmaker introduced a bill Tuesday calling for at least 10,000 members of the National Guard to be deployed at the request of any governor of a state that shares a border with Mexico.
There, guard members would act to support border protection operations and would remain until either the United States gets control of the border or the governor withdraws his or her request for assistance.
“The Southwest Border Protection Act of 2014 would assist in refocusing our border security programs and secure DHS and CBP’s focus on illegal smuggling of drugs, individuals, and other transnational criminal activities,” Schweikert said.
In recent months the southwest border has been inundated with tens of thousands of unaccompanied illegal immigrant children and family units from Central America amid violence, poverty, and rumors of a free pass into America.
The situation has been deemed an “urgent humanitarian situation” by President Obama, while many Republican lawmakers have pointed the finger of blame squarely at his administration for failing to secure the border and stirring up the impression that undocumented immigrants can get amnesty in the United States through his Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“Thanks to your Administration’s failure to enforce United States immigration law, our Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) agents are being overwhelmed by the current surge in illegal immigration,” Schweikert wrote in a letter to Obama Tuesday, demanding he deploy the National Guard.
“History has proven that the deployment of our National Guard to the southwest border has increased border security while deterring illegal immigration,” he added, concluding that failing to take immediate action will “have dire consequences on our national security.”