US governor withdraws National Guard from southern border as Trump announces dispatch of new troops

Pentagon announced it will increase the number of troops at the border to 4,350

(AP)

The democratic governor of New Mexico is withdrawing most of her state’s National Guard troops from the US-Mexico border, just as Donald Trump is planning a surge in US troops to combat what he describes as a major national security threat.

Just before Mr Trump delivered his second State of the Union address on Tuesday, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham announced that she would partially withdraw the troops that her Republican predecessor had sent there nearly a year ago at the president’s suggestion.

“New Mexico will not take part in the president’s charade of border fear-mongering by misusing our diligent National Guard troops,” Ms Lujan Grisham said in a statement.

Before her announcement, the state had 118 troops deployed at the border. Ms Lujan Grisham’s withdrawal will leave just around a dozen guardsmen along the southern border between her state and Mexico.

“I recognize and appreciate the legitimate concerns of residents and officials in southwestern New Mexico, particularly Hidalgo County, who have asked for our assistance, as migrants and asylum-seekers continue to appear at their doorstep,” she said.

The Pentagon announced over the weekend that it would send 3,745 more troops to the US southern border in order to install barbed wire fencing and to assist US Customs and Border Protection operations. That will bring the total number of US troops on the border to 4,350.

New Mexico is one of four US states to share a land border with Mexico in the southwest United States, where an influx of Central American migrants have surrendered themselves claiming asylum in recent months and years as they flee violence and economic hardship in their home countries.

Ms Lujan Grisham’s state in particular has received attention after the deaths of two migrant children in the care of the United States, Guatemalan children Filipe Gomez Alonzo and Javelin Caal.

Ms Lujan Grisham as also directed 25 National Guard troops from Arkansas, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Wisconsin to withdraw from the border between her state and Mexico.