ZERO HEDGE - TRUMP WOULDN'T BE THE FIRST PRESIDENT TO MOBILIZE THE NATIONAL GUARD TO ENFORCE IMMIGRATION LAW

Trump Wouldn't Be The First President To Mobilize The National Guard To Enforce Immigration Law

by Tyler Durden

Feb 18, 2017 1:30 PM

The shrieks of terror and hurt feelings were palpable yesterday as AP reported 'fake news' that 100,000 National Guard would sweep across the nation rounding up illegal immigrants. How could Trump do this? He is Hitler?!! The only problem for Leftists with their hypocritical outcry is... In 2010, President Obama said the same!

Having denied the Associated Press' report, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer came out denying any such program was being considered once the story was published.

He undercut the authenticity of the report, saying the draft was ‘‘not a White House document” and that the AP’s story was “100 percent not true.”

And as TheAntiMedia notes, at no point is there any explicit mention of what the Guard troops would do thanks to the fact that this draft did not propose federalizing them.

Each state governor orders a deployment at their discretion and under their command. What the would-be order seeks to do is expand the 287(g) program, which allows state and local agencies to assist federal immigration enforcement in detecting and apprehending unauthorized immigrants. The program was initiated under President George W. Bush and scaled back by President Barack Obama.

Even in the AP’s story, the further one reads, the less apocalyptic the details become. At the time of publishing, it took 15 paragraphs before AP writer Garance Burke reported, “Under current rules, even if the proposal had been implemented, there would not be immediate mass deportations.”

Elsewhere in the reporting, an unidentified DHS official says the draft was a very early one, not seriously considered, and never even proposed to the DHS secretary.

Why run the story with such an imminent sounding headline? Perhaps because the real purpose behind the draft would be less enticing to a readership conditioned for stories about a haphazard presidency.

We thought it worth reminding readers that if Trump went ahead with this plan, he wouldn’t be the first president to use the force this way. As McClatchy details,


In 2010, former President Barack Obama said he would deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border. They were sent to Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico. While National Guard troops were not authorized to arrest people found to be crossing the border illegally, they helped staff observation posts, monitor surveillance footage and build fences.

In 2006, former President George W. Bush called up 6,000 National Guard troops to California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. They were commissioned to help install border barriers, provide training and assist with border surveillance. The deployment was designed to support Customs and Border Protection agents in “executing logistical and administrative support, operating detection systems, providing mobile communications, augmenting border-related intelligence analysis efforts, and building and installing border security infrastructure.” Operation Jump Start, as the project was called, hoped to relieve Border Patrol agents from administrative duties so they could instead focus on border security.

According to Customs and Border Protection, the operation resulted in the apprehension of 5,003 people, 110 vehicles, $11,052, 28,577 pounds of marijuana and 1,447 pounds of cocaine.

Trump campaigned on a platform of tough immigration enforcement and increased border security, including the construction of a wall between the U.S. and Mexico. While initially indicating he wanted to deport all of the estimated 11 million people in the country without proper documentation, the president said he’d first focus on people with criminal records. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents have been conducting a series of raids across the country rounding up people they believe are in the country illegally. ICE last week took 683 people into custody, the government said, which is stoking fears among immigrant communities.

Obama removed more people from the U.S. than any other president, at some 2.5 million.

Bush deported about 2 million people. Annual deportations jumped into the hundreds of thousands in 1997, while the total for the prior 105 years was only 2.1 million people.

Does that mean Obama was "Hitler?"

FOR MORE ON THIS ARTICLE, PLEASE VISIT: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-18/trump-wouldnt-be-first-president-mobilize-national-guard-enforce-immigration-law