Governors from at least eight states have announced that they would withhold or recall National Guard troops from efforts to secure the United States’ border with Mexico, as the debate over the Trump administration’s practice of separating children from their parents at the southern border seeped into state political battles in an election year.
Many of the governors opposed to sending troops were Democrats, from states including New York, North Carolina and Virginia. But two Republican governors who face re-elections this fall in Maryland and Massachusetts also reversed their plans.
“Until this policy of separating children from their families has been rescinded, Maryland will not deploy any National Guard resources to the border,” Gov. Larry Hogan of Maryland said on Twitter on Tuesday. “Earlier this morning, I ordered our four crew members & helicopter to immediately return from where they were stationed in New Mexico.”
Some other Republican governors, under growing pressure to weigh in on the much-debated policy, voiced dissatisfaction over the separation issue, though some stopped short of addressing their state’s National Guard assistance.
In Illinois, Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican who is expected to face a difficult election challenge this fall, said he opposed the policy and called on President Donald Trump to halt it. (The state did not respond to questions about sending the National Guard to the border.) In Nebraska, Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican, issued a series of messages on Twitter voicing his dismay: “While there seems to be a lot of misinformation and propaganda regarding the situation on our border, one thing is clear: Children should not be separated from their families.”
But other Republican governors in deeply conservative states voiced strong support for the president’s “zero tolerance” policy.
“America is a nation of laws, and I am grateful is administration is enforcing them,” said Gov. Phil Bryant, R-Miss. “Every state must make similar decisions when removing a child who has been neglected or abused by their parents. It is an unfortunate reality of our justice system.”
Gov. Henry McMaster of South Carolina, a Republican who is close to Trump and faces a runoff election next week, said he supported the White House and signaled that he would not change his state’s guard deployment to the border.
“The president wanted troops at the border,” McMaster said Monday during a campaign stop in Spartanburg. “South Carolina sent troops to the border.”
During April and May, federal authorities separated at least 1,995 children from parents facing criminal prosecution for unlawfully crossing the border, the Trump administration announced on Friday. Photographs and an audio tape of crying children caught in the administration’s dragnet stoked new outrage this week, leading members of both parties to express concern.
Trump and two members of his Cabinet have forcefully defended the “zero tolerance” policy, with the president repeatedly making the false accusation that only the Democrats, the minority party, were to blame for it. The law does not require the authorities to separate children.
The issue, which turns on federal immigration policy, might have been largely a question left to leaders in Washington, not governors. But the Trump administration’s request for National Guard troops earlier this year has thrust the matter into the state-level debate as well.
Trump called in April for the National Guard to be deployed to the border, saying that thousands of troops were needed to stanch illegal crossings, even though they are at a 46-year low.
In recent days, Democratic governors from states like Colorado, Delaware, New York and Rhode Island have expressed deep opposition to family separation, and many declared they would not help at the border. For many of the governors, the defiance — which was being embraced by left-leaning constituents in their states — was largely symbolic, since they had not been planning to send large numbers of soldiers in the first place, if they had been asked at all.
“Under normal circumstances, we wouldn’t hesitate to answer the call,” said Gov. John Carney, D-Del., who said he had declined a request on Tuesday to send troops to the border. “But given what we know about the policies currently in effect at the border, I can’t in good conscience send Delawareans to help with that mission.”
Gov. Roy Cooper, D-N.C., that the “cruel policy of tearing children away from their parents requires a strong response” and that he was pulling his state’s small contingent — three soldiers — from the border.
Gov. Ralph S. Northam of Virginia said Tuesday that he was recalling four guard members and one helicopter.
And for Republican governors up for re-election this year in blue states, like Hogan of Maryland, Gov. Charlie Baker of Massachusetts, and Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, the practice has prompted them to remind voters that there are issues on which they disagree with Trump.
“It’s cruel and inhumane, and we told the National Guard to hold steady and to not go down to the border, period,” Baker, who had initially pledged to deploy two guard members and a helicopter, said on Monday.
Yet the “zero tolerance” policy was presenting a far more fraught situation for governors in purple states.
Gov. Kim Reynolds of Iowa, a Republican who is seeking election in November, voiced dissatisfaction with the policy in a news conference Tuesday. “It’s just horrific that, you know, children are being used as a pawn in this situation,” she said, adding that Congress needed to take action.
Gov. Christopher T. Sununu, a Republican seeking re-election in New Hampshire, said that the state’s National Guard had not been contacted by the administration, but that he “will not send our New Hampshire troops to the southern border to separate families.”
And Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who is running for Senate in Florida, said in a letter to the Health and Human Services Department that the practice of separating children from their families “needs to stop now.”
But McKinley Lewis, an aide to Scott, suggested there were no plans to change the deployment of three guard members to the border. “Gov. Scott will not play politics with the National Guard,” Lewis said.
Before Monday, Massachusetts had joined several states, mostly those in the South and led by Republican leaders, in support of the president’s order to dispatch National Guard troops. In Texas, which shares a 1,200-mile border with Mexico, Gov. Greg Abbott has pledged up to 1,400 troops, the largest contingent of all the states. The Defense Department has authorized up to 4,000 soldiers to be assigned to the border.
Several governors refused the request at the outset. Gov. Kate Brown of Oregon, a Democrat, and Scott of Vermont said days after Trump’s order that they would not comply if they were asked to send troops. Gov. Jerry Brown of California, also a Democrat, dispatched some soldiers to his state’s southern border but limited their roles, angering the president.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.