Governor Brian Kemp (R-Ga.) announced Tuesday that he will send National Guard troops to establish a forward command post in Texas to aid the Texas National Guard’s effort to secure the southern border and reduce the unprecedented level of illegal immigrants crossing into the United States.
“Because of Joe Biden’s failure to address the crisis at the southern border, every state is now a border state,” Kemp said in his announcement on Tuesday. “That’s why Georgia is once again stepping up to help do what the White House and Democrats in Congress refuse to do – secure our southern border. As I recently told Governor Greg Abbott, Texas has Georgia’s support and we stand ready to provide additional resources in the effort to keep Americans safe.”
According to The Associated Press, Kemp explained that Georgia will deploy a team of 15 to 20 National Guard troops to establish a command post in support of the Texas National Guard.
Tuesday’s press release noted that Kemp’s decision to deploy National Guard troops to Texas was supported by the Georgia state legislature.
The press release stated, “Both the Georgia State Senate and House of Representatives voted on and passed resolutions this week that reaffirm Georgia’s support for the Texas mission and its Constitutional right to self defense as the federal government fails to act.”
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Following his public announcement Tuesday, the Georgia governor told Fox News that his state’s deployment of National Guard troops to Texas will not take place until Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) submits a formal request to the Georgia Emergency Management and Homeland Security Agency.
“We’re still waiting for the written request from Texas – we’re not going to send them whenever we want to help,” Kemp said. “We know this is a national issue, and unfortunately, the president could fix this, but he’s not acting.”
According to The Associated Press, Kemp joined Abbott and a dozen other Republican governors at Eagle Pass, Texas, on February 4 amid the Texas governor’s feud with the federal government over the use of razor wire to secure the southern border against waves of illegal immigrants.
“We’ve had people down there since 2019, and I’ve been down there five times,” Kemp said Tuesday. “I’ve seen when the federal government and the state governments were cooperating, and saw how successful that was and how it flowed to the tide of illegal immigration and mass migration coming across our southern border.”
