Durbin Statement On Reports Of National Guard Deportation Force
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Senate Immigration Subcommittee, released the following statement after a leaked pre-decisional memo outlining a Trump Administration plan to mobilize 100,000 National Guard troops to arrest and detain unauthorized immigrants. The reports are being denied by the White House and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
“The reported Trump Administration plan to mobilize as many as 100,000 National Guard troops to arrest and detain unauthorized immigrants would be a frightening exercise of police state tactics.
"Trump executive orders have re-defined criminal activity so as to make undocumented immigrants with traffic offenses priorities for deportation. The same order calls for increasing the number of ICE agents to enforce the order from 5,000 to 15,000.
"Now, this plan which would add 100,000 Guardsmen to the effort shows the extreme measures the Trump Administration would take to break up families and deport people who have lived in this country peaceably for decades.
"We cannot rein in the hateful anti-immigrant agenda of the Administration unless the American people stand in solidarity against it.
“This is not a bizarre tweet. This is a brazen, heavy-handed assault on innocent people.”