CNN
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The Department of Homeland Security has requested 20,000 National Guard members to help with immigration enforcement across the US, a department spokesperson told CNN on Friday.
“The Department of Homeland Security will use every tool and resource available to get criminal illegal aliens including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and other violent criminals out of our country. The safety of American citizens comes first,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.
The request, which is under review by the Pentagon, is part of a renewed push by the Trump administration to ramp up arrests of undocumented migrants and fulfill President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation campaign promise, sources told CNN this week.
The effort will include tapping Border Patrol agents to fan out nationwide and comes as the Justice Department has begun intensifying its crackdown on immigration-related crime in cities across the country.
Trump officials have been frustrated with the slower pace of interior arrests of undocumented immigrants across the country, CNN has reported, and there have been some tense calls about it between the White House and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, multiple sources said.
But interior arrests often require significant manpower and resources — more than are needed when detaining migrants as they cross the border, which is why the administration is now trying to recruit additional personnel, including thousands of extra Guardsmen, for the task.
The National Guard units are also expected to help the Border Patrol agents in states where governors have given permissions, since the Guard units would be operating on state rather than federal orders under Title 32 authority, a Defense Department official previously told CNN.
Under the plan, states would deputize their National Guard under appropriate authorities, similarly to what Texas Governor Greg Abbott did in 2021 when he began deploying thousands of state troopers and Texas National Guard members to the border to help with immigration enforcement.
Earlier this year, US Customs and Border Protection and the Texas National Guard entered a memorandum of understanding to grant certain Texas Guard personnel immigration authority under the supervision of CBP officials.
The National Guard units helping with the immigration enforcement are expected to bolster arresting teams on the ground and provide what’s known as “force protection,” a source told CNN.
A defense official previously told CNN that the Guard is not expected to help with arrests and will only be playing a supporting role. Technically, however, because the Guard units will be under state command and control instead of federal, the units are not subject to the law that prohibits the military from conducting domestic law enforcement known as the Posse Comitatus Act, according to the Brennan Center.
The US military has deployed thousands of additional troops, including active-duty forces, to the southern border in recent months, but they have been doing patrols, building barricades and providing logistical support to DHS — not conducting arrests.
Active duty forces operating under federal, or Title 10, authority are not permitted to engage in domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
Last month, the Pentagon and DHS decided against recommending that Trump invoke the Insurrection Act for now, CNN reported at the time. The agencies told Trump that border crossings were low and that they did not need more authorities at that point to help control the flow of migrants, officials said.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand contributed to this report.
