(The Center Square) – New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu was granted a request earlier this week to send the New Hampshire National Guard to the southern border, with $850,000 in expenditures.
Sununu made the request on Feb. 13. “Simply stated,” Sununu said in a letter to the Fiscal Committee, “in the absence of a willingness at the federal level to secure our border, states (both individually and collectively) must undertake efforts to protect the safety of their citizens.”
The Fiscal Committee approved the request on Feb. 16. to deploy 15 National Guard members for up to 90 days. Following the decision, Sununu issued a statement praising the committee’s approval in a press release. “I thank members of the Fiscal Committee for approving these funds,” Sununu said. “In the wake of federal inaction, the work of the New Hampshire National Guard on the Southern Border will have a lifesaving impact – not just in Texas, but right here at home.”
The move is the latest Sununu has taken recently to push to secure the southern border as record numbers of migrants are crossing. In January, Sununu sent a joint statement along with 24 fellow Republican governors supporting Texas Gov. Greg Abbot’s moves to secure the border, specifically his use of razor wire fences. “President Biden and his Administration have left Americans and our country completely vulnerable to unprecedented illegal immigration pouring across the Southern border,” the statement said.
“Instead of upholding the rule of law and securing the border, the Biden Administration has attacked and sued Texas for stepping up to protect American citizens from historic levels of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs like fentanyl, and terrorists entering our country,” it continued.
A new report found the U.S. Border Patrol had 250,000 interactions with migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border in December 2023, the highest ever. Encounters fell to 124,000 in January 2024
