Gov. Kristi Noem Announces Her State Will Be Sending National Guard Troops To Help Texas With Border Crisis

South Dakota National Guard troops will deploy to Texas to help with the border crisis, Republican Gov. Kristi Noem announced Tuesday.

Up to 50 South Dakota National Guard troops will deploy to assist Texas law enforcement officials to secure the southern border, according to Noem. The troops will be in Texas for 30 to 60 days and the deployment was funded by a private donation.

“To [Greg Abbott] and the great people of Texas, help is on the way,” Noem said in a Tweet Monday evening. “Tomorrow, I will announce that South Dakota will be sending up to 50 National Guard troops to Texas to secure our southern border, and help solve the human and national security crisis that [Joe Biden] has created.”

Noem criticized the Biden administration for failing to mitigate the border crisis and risking the safety of Americans in a statement. She said the National Guard is better equipped to respond to the crisis than local law enforcement officers who are being pulled from communities.

“We should not be making our own communities less safe by sending our police or Highway Patrol to fix a long-term problem President Biden’s Administration seems unable or unwilling to solve,” Noem said in a statement.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott thanked Noem for sending National Guardsmen to help keep Texas communities safe and added that together the states can protect border communities from an influx of migrants illegally entering the U.S. Abbott issued a disaster declaration across southern Texas to allocate more resources for law enforcement officials to prosecute illegal migrants for smuggling, human trafficking and trespassing under federal and state laws, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported June 2.

Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis sent 50 law enforcement officials to help Texas officials manage the border crisis, DeSantis announced Friday. Around 25 Nebraska state troopers were also sent to Texas to help local officials with the influx of migrants illegally crossing the border for at most 16 days Republican Gov. Pete Ricketts announced June 19, the Daily Caller News Foundation reported.

Border officials encountered a record high of more than 180,000 migrants in May, up from 173,300 encountered in March and nearly 179,000 in April, according to Customs and Border Protection.