California joins Guard border mission, shuns Trump’s message
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown accepted President Donald Trump’s call to send the National Guard to the Mexican border, but rejected the White House’s portrait of a burgeoning border crisis and insisted that his troops will have nothing to do with immigration enforcement.
The Democratic governor broke a week of silence Wednesday by agreeing to contribute 400 troops, though not all will be on the border. Brown’s commitment brought pledges from the four states that border Mexico just shy of the low end of the president’s target to marshal 2,000 to 4,000 troops.
Brown cast his decision as a welcome infusion of federal support to fight transnational criminal gangs and drug and firearms smugglers.
“Combating these criminal threats are priorities for all Americans – Republicans and Democrats,” Brown wrote in a letter to Defence Secretary James Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.