LINCOLN — Gov. Jim Pillen, Speaker of the Legislature John Arch and State Sen. Tom Brewer visited a 35-member Nebraska National Guard contingent in Texas on Wednesday that the governor deployed to help the Lone Star State police its border with Mexico.
Pillen sent Nebraskans south for 90 days starting in April to join the Texas National Guard in patrolling the border region as part of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s state-funded effort to more aggressively intervene during attempted border crossings.
Guard members are set to return from this latest deployment in late June or early July. They are likely to be replaced with volunteers from other conservative-led states.
Abbott and other Republican governors have publicized people trying to cross the border in the run-up to the 2024 election, drawing a contrast between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
They argue the Biden administration waited too long and acted too late in responding to an influx of migrants seeking asylum and others trying to cross the border. The Biden administration says it needs more help from Congress.
Pillen and the five members of Nebraska’s all-GOP congressional delegation have criticized as ineffective Biden’s new executive order taking steps including a cap on the number of people who can seek political asylum each day, calling it “too little, too late.” Meanwhile, progressive Democrats have criticized Biden’s executive order as a partial ban on immigration.
Pillen is one of several GOP governors spending state and federal tax dollars to police a national border. His previous deployments of the Guard and Nebraska State Patrol troopers had already cost more than $1 million, the Examiner has reported.
He has faced criticism from Nebraskans who don’t want him spending state money on a federal responsibility, Other critics have said Pillen’s rhetoric is making the state more hostile to people who look, speak and act differently than they do.
Pillen says public safety in Nebraska and elsewhere is harmed when the U.S. lets more people cross into the country illegally. He calls every state “a border state.”
Pillen made another trip to the border Wednesday with state leaders and said Nebraska remains committed to the “critical mission.” He mentioned upticks in fentanyl seizures by U.S. law enforcement agencies.
“These Nebraska troops are helping to stop the influx of criminals, weapons, drugs and human trafficking into our country and state,” Pillen said in a statement.
Pillen was joined on the trip by Maj. Gen. Craig Strong, adjutant general of the Nebraska Guard, and Brewer, the term-limited chairman of the Legislature’s Government, Military and Veterans Affairs Committee. Both thanked the volunteers.
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