South Dakota troops headed to southern border — again
Gov. Noem announces latest guard deployment
Gov. Kristi Noem is sending South Dakota National Guard troops to the southern border later this spring.
The governor’s office Tuesday morning announced what will be the fifth deployment of South Dakota troops to the U.S.-Mexico border during her administration to assist in border security efforts.
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“The border is a warzone, so we’re sending soldiers,” the Republican governor said in a press release. “These soldiers’ primary mission will be construction of a wall to stem the flow of illegal immigrants, drug cartels, and human trafficking into the United States of America.”
The deployment of 60 South Dakota Guard troops comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott requested help from other states in responding to continued illegal crossings by migrants into the U.S.
The South Dakota troops will not all be sent at once, according to the governor’s office. Rather, they’ll be deployed on a “rolling basis” over a three-month period, though specifics on dates and number of troops working in Texas at any given time “may not be answerable due to security considerations,” the governor’s office said.
The deployment comes amid an ongoing dispute between Texas and the federal government over border security protocol. Earlier this year, Texas lost a lawsuit seeking to stop U.S. Border Patrol from removing barbed wire fencing the state had strung along portions of its border with Mexico.
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Presumably, we shouldn't expect any EMAC reimbursement from Texas for this deployment either. When Noem wants to untie the state's purse strings—whether it's border deployment, rodeo grounds, shooting ranges, fireworks, legal fees, ad agencies, whatever—she just does it. Worse, when her rash, selfish actions force taxpayers to pay large legal settlements, she doesn't even blink, let alone apologize. Her main objective, it seems, is to fill the void when Sean Hannity and his ilk have no "interesting" people to interview. [As for her VP chances, Trump, supposedly, does not want to be paired with an anti-choice absolutist. Remember, Kristi "The Kristian" Noem believes that a 12-year old girl, raped and impregnated by her syphilitic uncle, should carry to term. There is no mercy rule.]
We can’t feed children and have crumbling infrastructure, but we have money to subsidize Texas publicly stunts. What a joke.