The National Guard Is Not the Answer to the Migrant Crisis

It’s not only profoundly unwise, it could alienate Americans against the armed forces.

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Members of the National Guard look on as migrants walk to a processing area after they crossed the Rio Grande to Eagle Pass, Texas, on September 24, 2023. (Photo by Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP/Getty Images)

In a second Donald Trump presidency, his staff’s planned crackdown on illegal immigration not only envisages mass detention of those allegedly “poisoning the blood” of America, but also resurrects a bad idea rejected at the outset of his first term: deputizing the National Guard for internal immigration enforcement. This is part of a longstanding effort by Trump officials, most of whom lack uniformed experience, to drag the military into domestic law enforcement and politics. It is profoundly unwise, and among the grave dangers presented by a Trump restoration.

In January 2017, Trump’s White House staff proposed using existing federal law to deputize state and local law enforcement to also exercise immigration enforcement powers, including conducting warrantless searches, interrogations and arrests of suspected illegal aliens. Another federal statute, known as  “Section 287(g) authority,” can also reasonably be read for this power to extend to the National Guard, which through state governors maintains law enforcement powers denied to uniformed federal servicemembers.

A memorandum sent by the White House for DHS Secretary John Kelly’s signature proposed authorizing the National Guard, including from non-border states, and even loosely organized and politically appointed militias from those states, to perform the functions of immigration agents. At the time, I was (briefly) the only Republican appointee in DHS’ Office of General Counsel. This draft memo was so ill-advised that I asked for it not to be forwarded to the secretary; rather I immediately briefed him about its existence. Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, did not need to respond verbally: He just emphatically shook his head “no.”  Someone else promptly leaked the memo’s existence; the White House denied its provenance.

Reasons to reject this idea are obvious to anyone with military experience. The National Guard is a critical part of the Department of Defense; it provides wartime strategic reserves, as in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Guard further provides governors with organized manpower to respond to natural disasters and domestic unrest. Some units do riot control training, and can be given authority by governors to detain looters for example, but guardsmen are emphatically not criminal investigators.

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  1. Nick V

    This article contains many good points, but it fails to answer the question that came to my mind when I started reading. "If not now, when?" Meaning, if we cannot look at the current crisis at the border and determine that some elements of the military would be useful in assisting the defense of the actual, contiguous United States, what would constitute sufficient reason?

    As we have seen over the last two decades of irregular warfare and counter-insurgency operations, threats need not be uniformed before deciding the military is a useful tool in addressing them. While I agree in principle that having untrained junior enlisted servicemembers pressed into law enforcement duties domestically is a recipe for disaster, this leaves plenty of space for reconnaissance, surveillance, logistics, and communications. During my own military career, I have spent substantial training time in the Yuma Proving Ground. It is not uncommon to see signs of passage from traveling groups of people through the range areas. If we are not even defending our own reserved training spaces, why not? Is there a scenario short of Red Dawn where the military can be used to defend actual American soil?

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  2. John Boland

    I pray for our men and women in uniform. If Trump is reelected, their oath to the Constitution and courage to disobey unconstitutional orders will be severely tested.

    As aside, I don't know about that photo at the top. Overweight Guardsman with his hands in his pockets ("Air Force mittens", as we used to say)? Not a good look.

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  3. RaoD

    Very well thought out piece. Thanks

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  4. Scianti7

    Why is it so obvious to me & not to Trump/supporters that ICE should be fully funded to do it's job & recruit more folks, & the military & guard should do their jobs? There's a reason we have a military & National Guard, & a separate entity for border enforcement. Spreading our military & Guard forces thin in unpopular endeavor will likely lower recruitment, & effect our readiness. We already have readiness challenges.

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  5. Horseracer

    The National Guard is a volunteer organization. They are not drafted. They have a sense of patriotism, but for a variety of reasons choose not to be full time military. The 2 wars generated by 9/11 changed all the rules and turned their service into long term war tours of duty, disrupting their lives and making it difficult to have successful civilian careers. Their kids grew up with a parent often missing. Employers grew leery of hiring folks that could disappear at a moments notice, then reappear looking for their old job back, often filled by someone else. More and more we seem to be calling on the guard to handle what used to be rare emergencies. I wonder how this will eventually impact the willingness of people to "volunteer" and employers to hire Guardsmen and women?

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  6. Placid Paddler

    Way back in ‘91 we sent regular US troops from Fort Hood to the Gulf Coast with their radar systems to support the “drug war”. It was not a problematic mission and it resulted in great training opportunities.

    There are certainly many things military assets can be used for without putting soldiers in the position of being police while providing useful training to the troops.

    If a mission provides both training and security value, it should be explored. We undoubtedly need to be upgrading our drone systems and training troops to use them. We likely ought to be running some sort of training on the border for drone operators who should be reporting their intelligence to the border patrol. The goal should be to have soldiers and systems so that everyone from a sniper team to a corps commander knows exactly what activity is going on in their area.

    Why would we pass up the opportunity?

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    1. Randall Briggs

      I was the operations officer (S3) of an attack helicopter squadron that sent elements to that mission you mentioned. I didn't go. The squadron C.O. did, staying along the coast while we rotated AH-64 Apache troops down and back. It was expensive to deploy them, expensive to operate them, and expensive to redeploy them. It wasn't particularly good training, as the skills involved weren't the skills that aircrews would need in combat. The squadron was not in a state of readiness to go to war, and once everyone and all the equipment were back at Fort Hood, it took a significant amount of time, manpower, and other resources to restore mission-readiness. It was a very expensive way of putting a few IR sensors and radios into the air along the coast.

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      1. Placid Paddler

        I don’t doubt it. I wouldn’t suggest we use some of the world’s most expensive attack helicopters on the border either. I also think most of our present drone hardware is stupid expensive as well. Our high dollar stuff is currently getting a workout in Ukraine. What also is going on in several theaters is using low cost drones in large numbers very effectively.
        I don’t get to listen in on briefings or even read Jane’s anymore, so perhaps I’m wrong, but I suspect we could easily enter a conflict today and learn things like the Air Force and Navy learned the hard way in Viet Nam. Instead of it being fighter combat though, it would be drone warfare.

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    2. Avatar photo
      Addicus

      From the article, that's not how the Trump administration was contemplating using the military. It's also highly unlikely they would be so nuanced during a second administration either.

      Military support must be short term. If civilian agencies become dependent on military support, mission creep is inevitable.

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      1. Placid Paddler

        Correct in the first part, but only partly on the second. I certainly agree we need to watch for creep.

        First off, there’s no reason defense of the borders is necessarily a civilian mission in the first place, and that may be part of the problem. Seems to me that most countries have historically managed borders with either method depending on circumstance. A proper stance for the current situation would on the most extreme yet still reasonable place somewhere between using more strict civilian controls and walls and turning remote parts of the border over to the military altogether (with appropriate barriers and signage). We are currently outside that window even to the point of restraining the military on military bases and training grounds.

        Mission creep avoidance is problematic because it’s a slippery slope argument. Specificity in foresight is a helpful tool here. You have to put in the permission and funding the limits to start. There’s an easy limit to geographic boundaries, and to observe and report only.

        To stop the military from doing surveillance is like stopping bird watching because it might lead to hunting isn’t it?

        Edit: I’m actually talking about regular military here mostly, not National Guard. It seems to me the NG proposals are mostly just trucks to get around laws rather than realizing the purpose of the laws.

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        1. Avatar photo
          Addicus

          I’m going to respectfully disagree. Sure the military could do border security but that would distract from its war fighting mission. If you want surveillance as part of border protection then move those assets to the department of Homeland Security and out of the DoD. Then there are cleaner authorities and responsibilities. For example, could the Navy do the Coast Guard’s mission? Sure, but that’s not why we have a navy and why the Coast Guard is separate (under Homeland Security and not the DoD). The military augments/supports during a crisis; it’s not a long term solution.

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          1. Placid Paddler

            But I want to create the best reconnaissance and surveillance capable force for the military. We have an emergency now on the border, and we need to spin up our military for drone warfare in a way we really have not been expecting. It seems to me we are at best at parity in drone warfare. We are dependent on vulnerable, expensive, and centralized assets. While we lead in the area of big, expensive drones, we are not really the leaders in small, cheap drones.
            It might be smart to plan to turn it all back to DHS eventually. They already got some surplus predators, I believe. Why not use the military to figure out the solutions while they teach themselves to gain intelligence capabilities they need?

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        2. Scianti7

          Seems like hiring more boarder security agents & updating their equipment is smarter. I agree with the article. My issue is, if we become dependent on our military for border security our resources will not be available for other more pressing & possibly unforeseen things. The last thing to do during a dry recruitment period is stretch available resources thin on what will likely become an unpopular outing, particularly when we have entire agencies already dedicated to the job.

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          1. Placid Paddler

            A valid concern. One worth addressing in general (extreme and necessary change in amount of physical education hours at schools), and in particular. Much of the time troops spend in CONUS would be better spent doing this than the nonsense they are doing. Time spent training and performing missions actually helps retention. Beyond that, these skills have post military applications. The drone and robot sector is growing.

            Edit: Beyond that, if we need to deploy the troops, National Guard, Reserve, and even State Militia can be activated. Remember, part of the point here is to improve drone utilization and reconnaissance skills.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Addicus

    As someone with 20+ years of National Guard experience, the mission is *support* to civil authorities - not substitution for civil authorities. Use of the National Guard is a 911 mission. The Guard could support civil authorities with logistics, transportation, and general manpower. The idea that the Guard would be used for ICE or detainment missions is a gross misuse of the force.

    The Guard is still part of the military. It's primary mission is to 'fight and win our nation's wars'. Anything other than that is a distraction from training and it's primary mission.

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    1. Scianti7

      Exactly

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  8. The Pragmatic Conservative

    Another good reason to not use the National Guard at least: it's expensive to call and deploy them. They traditionally are used only when local law enforcement is overwhelmed with a temporary problem, such as a riot. But using the National Guard as a defacto border patrol would be a major drain on state or in this case federal budgets.

    Not saying this isn't a problem, but in my mind it would be a better approach to reinforce the border patrol.

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  9. Rossknode

    The real problem is we have a massive border with Mexico and heavily impoverished and ill-governed countries lie south of us. The idea we can "close off" the southern border (It's almost 2,000 miles long) is ridiculous and simply telling people who are being brutalized by their government or fellow citizens to not come is nonsensical. They will come because a US jail or the chance of being deported is worth it. I think that's what a lot of people do not understand. No matter what we put in their way, it will be worth it to leave the situation they are currently in. A mother is not going to "Wait your turn" when she thinks her child could be killed any day by rival drug gangs in her town.

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    1. Jack H Wolf

      Might I disagree with you in that the first argument that it is impossible to close off the border is an argument of the 'because something is not completely effective it is not worth doing' type. The purpose of law enforcement is to reduce not eliminate crime and the amount of people attempting to cross borders is absolutely proportional to the ease of doing it.. Since entering the country is expensive and dangerous, people will choose this option based on how much they estimate the chance of success. I equate this type of argument with those opposed to any gun regulation in that they can allude to a way to evade it.
      The second argument that the problem is the bad conditions in the countries that generate the migrants. Of course this is true, but it is an argument without a solution in the near future. I do support US aid for anti violence and prosperity, but it is not going to change things quickly. I would support money for things like boarding schools where teenagers could be protected from gang recruitment as well as preferential trade and foreign aid for source countries. Again, I allude to guns in that using that as a solution is like the pro gun folks who say it is all about improving mental health, as if that is an easy lift.

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    2. Bigdonmck

      'Yer 100% correct. The countries South of us are in horrendous shape. Where the heck is the United Nations?

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  10. Philebus

    From above: "As Kelly reminded Trump whenever the president suggested issuing illegal or immoral orders, American troops—from generals to privates—will not follow such orders, because they are good and decent people who do the right thing, as they are taught from day one in their initial entry training".

    It's odd that a President would need be reminded of such things, but possibly it's not the first time that has happened.

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