WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and border-state governors are working to "immediately" deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border to fight illegal immigration, with some troops potentially arriving later Wednesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said. "The president has directed that the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security work together with our governors to deploy our National Guard to our southwest border to assist the border patrol," Fox News reported Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, as saying at the White House press briefing. He has also been under growing pressure from conservative backers who have accused him of betraying his base for not delivering on the wall, and he was set off by images played on his favorite network, Fox News, of a “caravan” of migrants making their way through Mexico. “The lawlessness that continues at our southern border is fundamentally incompatible with the safety, security, and sovereignty of the American people,” Trump wrote in a memo authorizing the move, adding that his administration had “no choice but to act.”

The announcement came hours after Trump pledged “strong action today” on immigration and a day after he said he announced he wanted to use the military to secure the southern border until his long-promised, stalled border wall is erected. In Texas, which already has about 100 National Guard members stationed on the border, Republican Gov. Nielsen said the effort would be similar to a 2006 operation in which President George W. Bush deployed troops to help US Customs and Border Protection personnel with non-law enforcement duties while additional border agents were hired and trained.
U.S. President Donald Trump signs an order sending the National Guard to patrol the Mexico–United States border in response to Congress's failure to pass tightened border security measures.