Fla. governor won’t suspend National Guard deployment to border over child separation policy

Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) on Wednesday said he will not recall National Guard deployments from his state over the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” immigration policy that is separating families, The Sun-Sentinel reported.

“There are three members of the National Guard that have been ordered by the U.S. Department of Defense to the United States’ southern border,” spokesman McKinley Lewis told the newspaper. “Governor Scott will not play politics with the National Guard.”

There has been a national outcry over the Trump administration’s policy of aggressively prosecuting adults who cross the border illegally, causing the separation of families during criminal proceedings. 

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“This practice needs to stop now,” Scott wrote of the separation of families to the Trump administration on Tuesday, but he will not join other governors in withholding resources from federal immigration efforts.

Several states, including Maryland, North Carolina and New Hampshire, have recalled their troops amid the fury.

Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) canceled a troop deployment on Monday, saying the government’s actions “are resulting in the inhumane treatment of children,” according to his communications director Lizzy Guyton.

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) recalled four Virginia National Guard soldiers and one helicopter from Arizona on Tuesday.

Today I’m recalling four Virginia National Guard soldiers and one helicopter from Arizona. Virginia will not devote any resource to border enforcement actions that support the inhumane policy of separating children from their parents. https://t.co/AmdbE0XoFi

— Ralph Northam (@GovernorVA) June 19, 2018

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) announced Tuesday that the state will sue the Trump administration “for violating the Constitutional rights of immigrant children and their families who have been separated at the border.”

President Trump signed an executive memorandum in April directing Defense Secretary James Mattis to bolster the Department of Homeland Security’s effort to combat “a drastic surge of illegal activity on the southern border.”

Mattis approved as many as 4,000 troops to be deployed to the border, none of which are armed.

Many National Guard troops deployed to the southern border have been performing menial tasks, like shoveling manure or fixing flat tires, Politico reported last week.