CREW requests records on governors deploying their states’ National Guard to the southern border

Republican governors are once again sending their states’ National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border in an apparent use of taxpayer dollars to demonstrate discontent with a Supreme Court order lifting an injunction that had prohibited federal Border Patrol agents from disturbing Texas’s razor wire barriers on the border. Since the order, Texas Governor Greg Abbott issued a statement expressing disapproval of the Biden Administration’s border policies, declared the situation “an invasion” and granted the Texas National Guard, Department of Public Safety and other personnel the authority “to secure the Texas border,” in defiance of the Supreme Court’s order. Many Republican governors have since followed suit, announcing their support of Governor Abbott and ordering the deployment of their states’ National Guards to the southern border.

CREW has requested copies of communications from the Florida, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas governor’s offices and National Guards, as well as the Florida State Guard, pertaining to the February 2024 interstate deployment of troops to the southern U.S. border between Texas and Mexico. CREW has also requested additional documents regarding the total cost, any sources of funding, legal restrictions and parameters applicable to deployments.

The requested records will help show the state reasoning behind the governors’ decisions to deploy troops and the costs associated with deployments, both of which are matters of substantial public interest. This wouldn’t be the first time that a governor deployed their state National Guard to the southern border for politically motivated reasons. In 2021, CREW sued for records on South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem’s deployment of the SD National Guard to the southern border using a $1 million private donation. Records revealed internal communications raising ethical and legal concerns as her team prepared to defend the use of the donation. In addition to the cost to taxpayers, the public deserves to know about any support—advisory or financial—that governors may be receiving from outside sources that could be influencing their actions.