A force larger than the Marine Corps invades America’s southern border each month, prompting some states to act

July 2021 marked a 20-year record in the number of illegal migrants coming across America’s southern border, prompting U.S. Representative Chip Roy to call for the impeachment of President Joe Biden and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas over what most security experts agree is a “border crisis.” Roy told Fox News Sunday:

“Over the past several months, President Biden and Secretary Mayorkas have blatantly and consistently refused to do their constitutional duty to take care that the immigration laws be faithfully executed, as required by Article II, endangering countless American and foreign lives in the process.”

Roy also shared preliminary July border numbers on Twitter: “Total encounters: 205,029. Total known gotaways: 37,400. 1.3 million for [Fiscal Year] 21 so far. Largest monthly encounter number since 2000.”

In 2008, at the height of the “Global War on Terror” (GWOT), the United States Marine Corps worked tirelessly to recruit, train, and employ a force of 202,000 Marines – an increase from its previous 175,000 – in order to reduce strain on the institution and its warfighters who were making back-to-back combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

July 2021 saw a group larger than the entire Marine Corps – at its GWOT height – enter America illegally. And a group (the “gotaways”) nearly the size of the entire Marine Corps Reserves managed to escape Border Patrol and disappear into the interior of the country in a single month. And those are just the ones the Border Patrol knows about.

While the majority of these encounters were with single adults, it is true that most are not cut out to be Marines or their opposite – gang members or terrorists. Indeed, many illegal immigrants are desperate family units seeking a better life together.

Unfortunately, though, this process of illegal immigration feeds a multi-billion-dollar human trafficking black market, emboldens powerful criminal cartels, and puts some of the world’s most vulnerable at terrible risk.

According to Todd Bensman, a senior national security fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, the massive influx of families and unaccompanied minors flocking to the border are “causing Border Patrol to leave their posts all along the Texas border, and everybody else is taking advantage of their absence and pouring through.” Given the total numbers, 20% of which could be infected with COVID-19, it is hardly possible to view the flow across the border as anything short of an invasion. An invasion facilitated by the Biden Administration’s cancellation of the Trump-era “Remain in Mexico” program, which had successfully deterred migrant flows.

Recognizing the strain this crisis is putting on Border Patrol,  two state governors – Greg Abbott of Texas and Doug Ducey of Arizona – employed their own National Guard troops and state police along the southern border and requested assistance from the other 48 states to support the mission. So far, six states have answered the call with either National Guard or state law enforcement personnel: Florida, Nebraska, Iowa, Arkansas, South Dakota, and Ohio.

It seems that the governors of these states recognize that national security is increasingly local when federal leadership doesn’t fulfill their responsibility to protect American citizens and their property. They are well within their rights to mobilize their state’s National Guard since a state governor acts as the commander-in-chief of his or her respective state, commonwealth (Puerto Rico), or territory (Guam, Virgin Islands).  How the governor mobilizes these forces and pays for them, though, is an important consideration and an increasing challenge.

At least one of the states supporting the border security mission – South Dakota – will have a portion of its personnel funded privately through donations paid to the state by a Franklin, Tennessee based non-profit, the Willis and Reba Johnson’s Foundation.  When questioned about the legality of this type of donation, a spokesperson for the Foundation responded, “The [South Dakota] Governor has authority under SDCL 5-24-12 to accept a donation if she determines doing so is in the best interest of the State. The Governor has additional authority to accept donated funds for emergency management under SDCL 34-48A-36.”

While it’s unclear whether South Dakota needs private funding to cover the National Guard mobilization, what is certain is that the Guard is strapped for resources to a tune far larger than private philanthropy can supply. The National Guard’s coffers are depleted, by at least a half a billion dollars, because of the cost of the “capitol protection” mission after January 6, 2021.

This could be one reason why other states have not come to the aid of Texas and Arizona. Finding volunteers for such a mission is also a challenge, as Guard personnel have faced extensive deployments overseas in recent years and since 2020 saw the mobilization of the Guard for natural disasters ranging from forest fires to tornadoes and for other threats ranging from civil disorder to pandemic response.

A senior ranking retired National Guard officer explained,

“The Guard is tapped out in a lot of cases. 20 years of war, 15 years of the border security mission, all the other stuff part time Guard personnel do. When I ran an analysis of the average for our soldiers’ number of days on duty (state active duty and training in our state), it shocked me. The number was in the low 60s, meaning a part time soldier averaged more than 5 days a month doing guard training / duty. It is easy to point to using the Guard for border security as a solution at the higher level, but it’s not so practical when it filters down to the individual level.”

Ultimately, it is the federal government that has both the duty and the vast resources necessary to protect the nation’s borders. Besides re-instating Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” program, the Biden Administration has numerous ways that it can and should shore up the border.

The Administration could have used its massive infrastructure package to fund both surveillance infrastructure and physical barriers along the border.  Unfortunately, as pointed out by Fox’s Maria Bartiromo, the $1.2 trillion legislation that recently advanced through the Senate, with the support of 18 Republican Senators, did not include “a dime for border security.”

The Administration could also grow Border Patrol by identifying gapped requirements and requesting Congress to authorize and appropriate funding for this growth since there is obvious justification. During the interim, the President could mobilize active duty forces or the National Guard under Title 10 U.S. Code authorities to reinforce Border Patrol.  This, though, would require the use of either the Stafford Act or the Insurrection Act, requiring the Administration to admit there is a national crisis at the border, which they are unwilling to do.

The most politically palatable option for the Biden Administration might be to allocate at least two-years’ worth of funding for the Department of Homeland Security to enable DHS to request support from the Department of Defense for its border security mission, particularly with aviation assets. At the same time, the Administration could fund the DoD and the National Guard Bureau to create and maintain a surge capacity with these aviation assets, which would also prove extremely valuable during times of war.

This type of investment in defense aviation personnel, equipment, and capability within the DoD makes more sense than trying to replicate it within DHS or Border Patrol. As explained by another senior ranking National Guard officer:

“No one else in the world maintains military-style helicopters like the U.S. Military…and under the rigors of combat. How expensive is it for anyone else to replicate that? So instead of buying it all and giving it to CPB, what if the DoD and National Guard maintained a surge capability and then DHS could pay for it when needed?”

Ultimately, where there is a will, there’s a way.

For now, it seems that contrary to their duty, and despite available federal resources, there is no will with the Biden Administration.  Thankfully there appears to be a will among at least some state governors. The challenge moving forward is to figure out “the way” that state and local leadership can best fill the gap in this expanding crisis at the border.