Texas Border Patrol agent saves migrant child from drowning
Fox News' Griff Jenkins reports from the Rio Grande Valley, widely seen as the epicenter of the migrant crisis.
EXCLUSIVE: The largest conservative caucus in the House is calling on their state governors to send National Guard troops or law enforcement personnel to the southern border ahead of former President Donald Trump's trip to Texas on Wednesday.
The Republican Study Committee (RSC) on Tuesday fired off a dozen letters to their respective home state governors pressuring them to answer the call of Texas and Arizona to send extra law enforcement resources to the border to combat the immigration influx.
In one such example, Wisconsin GOP Reps. Tom Tiffany, Glenn Grothman and Scott Fitzgerald sent a letter to Democratic Gov. Tony Evers urging him to send personnel immediately to stem the "crisis at America's southern border."
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"Wisconsin should help where we can because every state is now a border state," Tiffany said in a statement. "Having traveled to our southern border multiple times I have seen [President] Biden’s Border Crisis firsthand, it is past time to end this unprecedented invasion."
The letter campaign comes as a couple dozen members of the RSC are en route to Texas where they'll join Trump to tour the border and draw attention to what they say are failures of President Biden's immigration policies. There's been a massive surge of migrants coming to the border in recent months – with more than 180,000 encounters in May alone.
"Since the Biden administration won’t act, it’s up to Republicans and state leaders to secure our border and keep our nation safe," said RSC Chairman Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who is coordinating the border trip and state pressure campaign.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey earlier this month penned a joint letter to 48 other governors asking for help during the border crisis, which they called a "disaster" and an "emergency." The Republicans urged their fellow governors to "send all available law enforcement resources to the border in defense of our sovereignty and territorial integrity."
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Both states have sued over the Biden administration’s policies, arguing that border states are hurt the most by the relaxing of Trump-era border and enforcement measures.
Some states already answered the call and sent National Guard troops or law enforcement to the border, including Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey, South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem.
Migrant women carry children in the rain at an intake area after turning themselves in upon crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, late Tuesday, May 11, 2021, in La Joya, Texas. The U.S. government continues to report large numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border with an increase in adult crossers. But families and unaccompanied children are still arriving in dramatic numbers despite the weather changing in the Rio Grande Valley registering hotter days and nights. (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)
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The RSC sent letters of thanks to governors who have already stepped up but issued pleas to other states that have yet to answer the call, including to the governors of Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Kansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin.
"Our home state of Michigan has a responsibility to respond and support states that have not received the necessary federal resources to deal with the crisis," six GOP reps wrote in one letter to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer.
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Trump is scheduled to visit the U.S.-Mexico border with Abbott Wednesday as the governor has pledged to continue building a border wall with Mexico.
Fox News' Adam Shaw contributed to this report.
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