(The Center Square) – Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Friday he is sending 316 members of the National Guard to Washington to support President Donald Trump’s declaration of a crime emergency in the nation’s capital.
The deployment includes 300 soldiers and 16 support staff, the governor’s office said in a release.
“Georgia is proud to stand with the Trump administration in its mission to ensure the security and beauty of our nation’s capital,” Kemp said. “We share a commitment to upholding public safety and are grateful to these brave Guardsmen and women, for the families that support them, and for their dedication to service above self. As they have demonstrated again and again, our Georgia Guard is well equipped to fulfill both this mission and its obligations to the people of our state.”
Trump declared a national crime emergency in Washington on Aug. 11, saying the district has “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” according to previous reports.
Eight states have sent a combined 1,338 National Guard members to Washington, according to the District of Columbia National Guard website. West Virginia has sent the most guard members -418, followed by South Carolina (263), Mississippi (182), and Tennessee (170). The District of Columbia has 952 members as part of the mission, according to the website.
Georgia’s National Guard members are also working with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement but this deployment is separate, Kemp said. The guard members working with ICE are not armed and perform administrative and logistical tasks, according to the governor.
Sen. Kenya Wicks, D-Fayette, a retired Army officer, called the mobilization of the guard to help ICE a “dangerous precedent.”
“Georgia’s National Guard should not be deployed to carry out a political agenda in a nation known for welcoming immigrants and offering them the prospect of freedom and opportunity,” Wicks said. “The Guard’s oath remains the same: to defend our nation against foreign and domestic threats and to respond in times of true emergency. Using them against immigrant families is a misuse of military force that tears at the fabric of who we are as a nation.”
