Arizona, Texas to send 400 National Guard members to the US-Mexico border

A YOUNG man has been snapped jumping over a wall on the US-Mexico border as two states announce they will send 400 National Guards by next week.

Arizona and Texas will send 400 National Guard members to the US-Mexico border in response to President Donald Trump’s call for troops to fight drug trafficking and illegal immigration.

Arizona Governor Doug Ducey said about 150 Guard members would deploy next week. The Texas National Guard said it was already sending Guardsmen to the border, with plans to place 250 troops there in the next 72 hours.

The total remains well short of the 2000 to 4000 National Guard members that Trump told reporters he wants to send.

Trump’s proclamation Wednesday directing the use of National Guard troops refers to Title 32, a federal law under which Guard members receive federal pay and benefits, but remain under the command and control of their state’s governor. Deployments to the border under former presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama both occurred under Title 32. Bush sent around 6,000 troops in 2006, and Obama sent 1,200 Guard members in 2010.

Trump’s proclamation blamed “the lawlessness that continues at our southern border.” Trump has suggested he wants to use the military on the border until progress is made on his proposed border wall, which has mostly stalled in Congress.

After plunging at the start of Trump’s presidency, the numbers of migrants apprehended at the southwest border have started to rise in line with historical trends.

The Border Patrol said it caught around 50,000 people in March, more than three times the number in March 2017. That’s erased a decline for which Trump repeatedly took credit.

News reports of a caravan of Central American migrants passing through southern Mexico also sparked angry tweets from the president.

Department of Homeland Security officials have said Guard members could support Border Patrol agents and other law enforcement agencies.

MAN JUMPS BORDER WALL IN TWO MINUTES

However, Trump’s orders to secure the US frontier did not stop one determined migrant from hopping the border wall on Friday.

With the help of three other men — two to give him a boost and one to stand as a lookout — the young man jumped the rusty metal barrier that separates Ciudad Juárez from Sunland Park, New Mexico.

The whole operation took less than two minutes.

“He couldn’t get over! He was taking forever,” said one of the men who helped him, telling AFP he has seen people scale the six-metre wall in one minute flat.

He then ran off to avoid being spotted by US Customs and Border Protection. The young border jumper, who hailed from southern Mexico, meanwhile disappeared into the desert, running toward a group of houses just visible on the horizon.

Meanwhile, the activists organising the migrant caravan have announced they will no longer try to reach the border en masse, and individual migrants and families have each begun going their own way.

Many remain in central Mexico. But some have already made it to the border, according to Javier Calvillo, a Catholic priest who runs a shelter for migrants in Ciudad Juárez.

“Five migrants who were part of the caravan arrived here this week, but they’re already gone,” he said.

“They crossed into the United States, or tried to.”