The Defense Department is studying the application. If approved, an official said, it would be the first time that soldiers of the National Guard are used to help apply a repressive measure against migration in the country.
The United States National Security Department has requested more than 20,000 members of the National Guard to help in the campaign to repression of the Donald Trump’s government, according to two US officials with knowledge of the plans.
The application to the Department of Defense occurred after President Donald Trump requested last week to the Department of National Security that increased his ranks incorporating 20 thousand agents of state or federal agencies.
Pentagon’s lawyers were reviewing the petition with “the application of interior migration,” according to an official of the Defense Department who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. It was not clear what role would the members of the National Guard of states play and if they would participate in the raid of people for deportation, said the official.
It was not clear immediately if states would also have to approve the plan.
In general, the National Guard soldiers have played a role of support to the national authorities in migration issues on the border, including logistics, security and other assistance. However, the defense department official said that, if the application was approved, it would be the first time that soldiers of the National Guard were used to help apply a measure of repression of migration in the United States.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of National Security, confirmed the application in a statement, in which he affirmed that the department “would use all the tools and resources available” for the president to fulfill the “mandate of the US people to stop and deport illegal foreign criminals.”
“The safety of American citizens is the first,” he said.
The measures to reinforce the capacity to apply the immigration laws are part of a broader impulse to increase deportations and arrests to fulfill Trump promises of “mass deportations”, which the government has not been able to consummate so far. Migrant arrests require important resources, including a lot of surveillance time.
To help in this task, the Trump government has resorted to agents and officials from other federal agencies, including the Department of Justice. This same week, the agency has mobilized about two thousand agents from the Office of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF, in English); of the Marshals service of the USA and the Drug Control Administration (DEA, in English) to help in arrests.
In the first months of the Government, the ATF and DEA agents, among others, dedicated themselves above all to helping the officials of the Customs Immigration and Control Service (ICE, in English) to ensure the scenes of the arrests and add more people to the teams that pursue undocumented migrants.
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The Trump government has also asked local security forces for help. In recent months, they have signed agreements with local police that would allow them to hold migrants in cooperation with ICE. At the end of last month, Florida’s forces helped ICE in an operation that led to the arrest of more than one thousand undocumented migrants.