Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) announced this week that he would send 1,000 troops to the Mexico border to help with the refugee crisis, but sheriffs in border counties are already dismissing the plan as a "political" stunt.
At a press conference on Monday, Perry said that he was activating 1,000 National Guard troops because he would "not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor. We are too good of a country."
Border sheriffs, who were apparently not consulted about Perry's plan, said that they would have rather he spent the money on additional personnel with the power to actively participate in border operations. In previous deployments to the border, National Guard troops have assisted in administrative duties, and intelligence gathering.
“At this time, a lot of people do things for political reasons," Cameron County Sheriff Omar Lucio told the Dallas Morning News. "I don’t know that it helps."
“I don’t know what good they can do,” he explained. “You just can’t come out here and be a police officer.”
Lucio said that border counties needed the state to fund more police, who would be able to directly work with the U.S. Border Patrol.
Texas National Guard Adj. Gen. John Nichols insisted that the troops could be of assistance with their mission of "referring and deterring."
Sen. Wendy Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor in Texas, has called for "deploying additional deputy sheriffs to the border like local law enforcement is calling for, rather than Texas National Guard units who aren’t even authorized to make arrests."
Watch video of Gov. Perry's press conference below.
(h/t: The Wire)
