Members of the Indiana National Guard will be deployed to Texas, where they will assist with Gov. Greg Abbott's efforts to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Indiana officials announced Friday.
In a news release, Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb said 50 guardsmen will be sent to the southern border and provide assistance to the Texas National Guard. The soldiers will begin preparing for the missing immediately and will arrive in Texas in mid-March, the governor's office said.
Holcomb and 13 other governors joined Abbott for a news conference on Sunday at the southern border and affirmed support for Abbott in an escalating showdown with the Biden administration over immigration.
“Federal negligence enforcing immigration law and the failure to secure our country’s border jeopardizes national and economic security, affecting every state, including Indiana,” Holcomb said. “We’ve worked too hard in Indiana attacking the drug epidemic for more Hoosier lives to be put at risk by a constant supply of killer drugs spilled over an open U.S. border. The only way to resolve this is to stop the historically high flow of illegal immigrants crossing the border.”
At least 14 states—including Arkansas, Florida, Iowa, Idaho, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming—have either deployed personnel or supplied resources to help with border security.
The soldiers, which are being deployed at Abbott's request, will spend one week at Camp Atterbury for training before heading to Texas for 10 months. In a statement, Major General Dale Lyles, the adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard, said its members "are uniquely trained, equipped and capable of mobilizing whenever and wherever we’re called."
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