During an appearance on the Glenn Beck Program last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) hinted he would not hesitate to send as many as 1,000 National Guard troops to the southern border should the situation call for it.
“We’re obviously looking at every option that we have,” Perry said. “Aviation assets of the National Guard have been down [at the border] for some time… but as you know, as you’ve seen, we’re going to have to do more. And one of the reasons we’re going to have to do more is that now we are beginning to see the criminal activities.”
Watch the entire interview with Perry below:
On Monday, Perry announced he has grown tired of the “lip service” from the federal government and will be deploying 1,000 National Guard troops to the Texas-Mexico border. This will supplement and support the state-funded border surge Perry already enacted that is costing some $1.3 million a week.
These 1,000 troops will deploy over the next 30 days as part of “Operation Strong Safety.” In a press conference, Perry said the national media has focused on the unaccompanied illegal immigrant children crossing the border. According to Perry, those children make up on just 20% of the daily crossings. Meanwhile, the scores of dangerous drug cartel and gang members entering this country illegally go largely unreported.
“Over the years, I have repeatedly called on the federal government to live up to its responsibility of protecting this great nation by securing the border,” Perry said. “Since 2008, more than 203,000 criminal aliens have been booked into Texas county jails… These individuals have committed more than 630,000 crimes – and that is in the state of Texas alone.”
“I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor,” he continued. “We are too good a country for that to occur.”
On radio this morning, Glenn explained why Perry’s response is the “best [he] has seen so far” and questioned – given the severity of the situation – whether this latest action goes far enough.
Front page image courtesy of the AP