Gov. Greg Abbott Deploys National Guard On Texas Anti-ICE Protests

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) announced Wednesday he’s deploying National Guard troops to statewide protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, making him the first governor to willingly use military force on this wave of demonstrations.

“Texas National Guard will be deployed to locations across the state to ensure peace & order,” he wrote on social media. “Peaceful protest is legal. Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest.”

The troops “will use every tool & strategy to help law enforcement maintain order,” he continued.

Demonstrations have arisen in Austin, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and other cities in Texas following ICE raids rounding up and detaining undocumented immigrants at work and on the streets, including people showing up to immigration court hearings and young, asylum-seeking children.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said it arrested just five people during the protest Monday in Austin, which brought out hundreds of demonstrators. The city’s police department arrested eight others.

The governor’s announcement comes the same day a sizable protest is expected in downtown San Antonio on Wednesday evening.

San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said at a press conference earlier Wednesday that Abbott hadn’t given him any notice of the National Guard being deployed, adding that his constituents are fed up with the “government’s crude interpretations of immigration law and cruel approach to human rights.”

Trump sent the National Guard into Los Angeles as protests took off there last weekend. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) has loudly rebuked Trump for doing so without his request, and the state filed a lawsuit arguing there was a “lack of evidence that local law enforcement was incapable of asserting control and ensuring public safety.”

Amid the pushback, Trump announced he was also deploying the Marines to Los Angeles, despite protests there being largely peaceful.

Trump said Tuesday he’s done playing by the rules when it comes to sending in the National Guard, bucking the protocol of letting governors and local leaders make that call.

“You have to remember, I’ve been here before and I went right by every rule. And I waited for governors to say, ‘Send in the National Guard.’ They wouldn’t do it,” Trump said from the Oval Office.

“I said to myself, if that stuff happens again, we’ve got to make faster decisions, because they don’t want to do it,” he continued.

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