BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana’s National Guard is one step closer to heading to the Southern Border.
Texas sent an official request for border support to the Louisiana Department of Homeland Security on Monday. GOHSEP Director Jacques Thibodeaux says they’re ready to answer the call.
“We have a long-standing relationship with Texas,” Thibodeaux said. “They’ve helped us with times of crisis, and we’ve helped them with times of crisis.”
If the legislature approves the request, 50 national guardsmen will be deployed ahead of hurricane season, beginning as early as March.
“It will be relatively quickly. When we get a military deployment from EMAC, we usually do it within days,” Thibodeaux said.
As part of the deal, Louisiana and its taxpayers would pick up the bill, which is estimated to be around 3 million dollars.
“This is not a temporary fight,” Texas Governor Greg Abbott said. “This is a permanent fight.”
This comes after a years-long dispute between Texas Governor Greg Abbott and the Biden Administration on how to handle migrant crossings into the United States.
“There’s an issue there, clearly and there’s a conflict between the states and the federal government,” Representative. Mark Wright said. “I think most of Louisiana is on the side of the states, Texas in this case, and no problem with us helping.”
As Governor Landry holds his special session on crime in the state capitol. Thibodeaux added that he hasn’t forgotten about security here at home.
“In the emergency management world, you have to do quite a bit of things at one time, and that's what he's demonstrating that he's doing,” Thibodeaux said.
He says Landry is committed to reducing Louisiana crime while helping our sister state.
“It’s always been strong, it will continue to be strong, and we’ll have a partnership well into the future,” Thibodeaux said.
Louisiana is one of 18 states to pledge support to 'Operation Lone Star,' including Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia.
► Get breaking news from your neighborhood delivered directly to you by downloading the new FREE WWL-TV News app now in the IOS App Store or Google Play.