Montgomery, AL – Alabama Governor Kay Ivey has made the decision to deploy 275 Alabama National Guard soldiers to help address the ongoing crisis at the southern border. This move is seen as an expression of Alabama’s commitment to playing an active role in protecting the southern border.
Governor Ivey emphasized that under current policies, every state has effectively become a border state. This decision to deploy troops signifies Alabama’s dedication to protecting its citizens and taking part in the broader mission to address the border situation.
The deployment of the Alabama National Guard is part of a longstanding effort by Governor Ivey to provide support to tackle the challenges posed by the border crisis. It aligns with Alabama’s commitment to national security and ensuring the well-being of its residents.
Governor Ivey also recently joined her Republican colleagues in writing a letter to President Joe Biden, where they expressed concerns about the impact of current border policies. They highlighted that these policies incentivize illegal immigration and are causing an array of issues for states. These challenges include overcrowded shelters, depleted food pantries, strained law enforcement resources, and exhausted aid workers.
In their letter to the President, the governors called on the administration to provide detailed information about migrants admitted at the southern border, including where they are being relocated within the United States. They also requested comprehensive data on asylum claim processing and qualification rates, as well as information on the success of deportations.
The governors emphasized the urgency of receiving this information promptly and regularly to effectively address the ongoing border crisis. They noted that this situation transcends partisan boundaries and is impacting states across the political spectrum.
In their concluding remarks, the governors underscored that the burden of addressing the border crisis is substantial, with the annual net cost of illegal immigration estimated at over $150.7 billion across federal, state, and local levels. This financial burden is borne by hardworking citizens, making transparency and cooperation crucial to addressing the challenges posed by the border crisis.
The governors’ call for collaboration seeks to ensure that the border crisis is met with effective, collective solutions that prioritize the well-being of all American citizens.
Full letter is below:
President Joseph R. Biden, Jr.
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Mr. President,
The crisis at the southern border extends to every state. As a result of your policies which incentivize illegal immigration, our states are carrying the burden of both the years-long surge in illegal border crossings and cartels’ coordinated trafficking of drugs and human beings. States are on the front lines, working around-the- clock responding to the effects of this crisis: shelters are full, food pantries empty, law enforcement strained, and aid workers exhausted. As governors, we call on you to provide honest, accurate, detailed information on where the migrants admitted at the southern border are being relocated in the United States, in addition to comprehensive data on asylum claim timelines and qualification rates, and successful deportations. We ask for this information immediately, but also regularly as the crisis at the southern border continues.
Your administration can no longer ignore simple facts that threaten our citizens’ public safety and strain their public resources. Since you have taken office, there have been over 5.8 million illegal crossings at the southern border. In addition, your Customs and Border Protection agency estimates 1.6 million crossers have evaded apprehension. Even illegal crossings at the northern border have increased exponentially under your administration, in some areas by nearly 850%. In the past two years, 244 people on the terrorist watchlist were stopped trying to cross the southern border—an all-time record. Absent transparency from your administration, though, we cannot know how many terrorists have evaded capture and are now freely moving about the country. Your administration admitted under oath to Congress that cartels prioritize the southern border as a major corridor and exploit it daily for human and narcotics trafficking. Our country cannot tolerate 100,000 deaths every year from a fentanyl crisis fueled by cartels pouring the fatal drug into our communities, nor can it tolerate the horrors of human trafficking and the lifelong scars it leaves on victims.
Though we remain committed to addressing these issues, States cannot afford to respond to a challenge of such magnitude while the federal government continues to turn a blind eye. Analysts estimate the annual net cost of illegal immigration for the United States at the federal, state, and local levels is at least $150.7 billion. States are forced to provide financial, educational, and medical support to migrants entering our country illegally– support that is skyrocketing in cost due to record inflation and the unprecedented influx of migrants into our states. The financial impact on the states is staggering, and it is our hardworking citizens who shoulder that burden.
This is not a partisan issue. Democrat New York City Mayor Eric Adams stated, “This is not a New York City problem. This is a national problem….[Funding for the influx of migrants to New York City is] going to come from our schools’ services. It’s going to come from our streets. It’s going to come from what we provide to children.” Our fellow governor, Democrat Maura Healey of Massachusetts, declared a state of emergency due to the number of migrants in her state, and described the federal government’s mismanagement of immigration as “a federal crisis of inaction.”
As we have made clear repeatedly, every state is now a border state.
As governors, we call on you and your administration to relay immediately accurate, detailed, thorough data and information to the states about who is crossing the southern border illegally, where they are relocating, how the federal government is processing their asylum applications, and whether they are being deported successfully. Without such information, we cannot fulfill our fundamental providing our communities with appropriate services.
