California has conditions for sending troops to the border
According to the government of the United States, the Governor of California Jerry Brown rejected the terms for the initial deployment of the National Guard on the border with Mexico, which is one of the President´s recent ideas. However, a state official indicated that a decision has not yet been made.
"The governor determined that what we requested is unacceptable, but we will have other iterations", said interim deputy commissioner of the Office of Customs and Border Protection Ronald Vitiello to the press in Washington.
Brown received an unusual and elusive compliment from President Donald Trump last week for assigning 400 troops to the third large-scale border guard mission of the National Guard since 2006. However, the Democratic governor conditioned his commitment that the troops were not involved in any way in the exercise of immigration laws, not even as support.
Brown's announcement last week did not touch on the specific tasks that the California National Guard would perform, nor how the state authorities would distinguish immigration-related work from other aspects of border security, such as combating gangs and the trafficking of drugs and weapons.
Vitiello said the governor decided that California would not accept the terms of an initial deployment of troops for the state that were similar to those of the other three border entities: Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. He said that California could participate in another way yet to be defined.
According to two federal officials, the initial tasks to be performed by the troops include the repair and maintenance of vehicles, the use of remote-controlled surveillance cameras to report suspicious activity to Border Patrol agents, the use of radios and the provision of "backup to the mission", which could include administrative work, gasoline purchases and payroll management. Officials spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they did not have authorization to deal with the matter publicly.
The spokesman for the National Guard of California, Lieutenant Thomas Keegan, said that "the state authorities have not rejected anything" since Brown proposed last Wednesday a formal agreement with the departments of National Security and Defense that prohibits any participation in tasks of immigration. "The federal government has not responded yet," Keegan confirms in an email statement.
