President Joe Biden has reportedly informed the Alaska National Guard that it should be prepared to deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Alaska National Guard said last week that a memorandum directed it to prepare two LUH-72 Lakota helicopters and 20 guardsmen who could be sent to the border in early 2025, as the Anchorage Daily News reported.
The request was reportedly filed under “Title 10 duty status,” meaning that the federal government would be in charge of the taxpayer spending associated with the prospective deployment, and Alaska Gov. Mike Dunleavy would have little ability to deny the request.
Maj. Ryan Wierzbicki, the spokesperson for the U.S. Army’s Joint Task Force North, claimed this was not an uncommon request, and the troops could be sent to any of the four states along the southern border, per the Anchorage Daily News.
Dunleavy, who signed a joint letter supporting Texas’ efforts to secure its border with Mexico, said on Wednesday that he would like to send troops to the Lone Star State but could run into issues with the associated taxpayer spending.
“To send the Guard down will cost us about — according to Adjutant General Saxe — about a million dollars a month for 100 folks. We’ll test the waters with the legislature to see if they’re willing to fund that, and I wouldn’t mind helping Texas with their issue on the border,” he said, per the Anchorage Daily News.
The Alaska governor also dismissed concerns that the dispute between Texas and the federal government could result in an armed conflict.
“There’s some nonsense that by doing that, you’re setting up a new Confederate army against the Union or that you’re setting up a flashpoint between Americans. That’s not the case, and that’s not something I would want. And I know Gov. Abbott. That’s not what he wants,” said Dunleavy, per the Anchorage Daily News.
The potential deployment comes as the Biden administration has reportedly considered taking executive action to deal with the crisis at the southern border, as reported by NBC News.
An expected increase in unlawful migration in the coming weeks has led the White House to discuss the next steps to manage the crisis after a border bill failed to get passed by Congress.
The bill was highly criticized by Republican lawmakers due to the foreign aid price tag and the high number of encounters with unlawful migrants required to trigger a shutdown at the border, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
It would have allocated more than $80 billion to foreign aid for Ukraine and Israel while providing less than $25 billion to help manage the crisis at the border. Additionally, the bill would have allowed more than 1.8 million people to cross into the United States each year.
