The Republican governors of Oklahoma, West Virginia and Nebraska this week joined a rising checklist of these deploying Nationwide Guardsmen to the U.S.-Mexico border to bolster the ranks of the Texas Nationwide Guard’s scandal-scarred mission.
The roster now contains at the least 13 Republican governors who collectively made pledges to ship roughly 1,300 Guardsmen to the border to assist Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, which is nicely into its second yr and has value at the least $4.5 billion in an effort to fight unlawful immigration and smuggling.
The Texas Nationwide Guard makes up the lion’s share of the mission. At its peak, Operation Lone Star had some 10,000 Nationwide Guardsmen, however the Texas Guard didn’t have the personnel to maintain that mission for an extended time period, thus prompting Abbott to ask different states for his or her troops in Could.
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“I’ve authorized the deployment of members of the WVNG to assist safe our border, cut back the flood of fentanyl, and fight the human trafficking disaster,” West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice mentioned in an announcement Monday. “A number of governors are doing this as a result of the scenario on our Southern Border is horrible, and I need to be certain we’re doing our half.”
The Texas border mission has lengthy been plagued with complaints of late pay for troopers and points with troops having little to truly do, resulting in problems with ingesting and poor morale. There may be additionally little proof the Guard’s mission is combating smuggling and unlawful immigration.
Lots of the out-of-state deployments to Texas are comparatively small and brief missions. Every of the three states sending troops this week are sending solely about 50 Guardsmen and for less than a month, leaving little time for precise operations on the border after transferring personnel and equipment on and off the mission.
All of these deployments are voluntary and with created process forces as an alternative of a pre-existing unit.
In the meantime, every state sending help to the Texas border can be juggling its personal missions at dwelling and overseas.
Ohio, for instance, was one of many first states to deploy to Texas, sending 185 troops in 2021. The next yr, it deployed some 2,000 troops to Syria and Iraq, marking a number of the solely typical troops deployed to a fight zone at the moment. Virginia deployed 100 Guardsmen to the border in Could, shortly after it returned from its mission within the horn of Africa.
The Guardsmen with Operation Lone Star are on state active-duty, or SAD, orders. Which means they’re usually paid lower than in the event that they had been on conventional navy obligation and should even fill out new W4 tax kinds like state contractors.
Troops on SAD orders don’t accrue advantages related to service, such because the GI Invoice or VA dwelling loans, and should not entitled to incapacity by the Division of Veterans Affairs if injured on obligation.
Guardsmen normally fall beneath federal protections in opposition to retaliation from their civilian employers for taking day off to serve, however these legal guidelines largely don’t shield them whereas on state obligation, although some states have their very own protections.
The Operation Lone Star troops are separate from the 4,000 service members on the border as a part of a federal mission largely centered round administrative duties ordered by President Joe Biden. Beneath federal orders, troops earn full pay and advantages.
— Steve Beynon may be reached at Steve.Beynon@navy.com. Observe him on Twitter @StevenBeynon.
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