Pentagon again rejects DC mayor request for National Guard to help with migrant ‘crisis’

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser’s request for national guard assistance in dealing with the migrants ‘crisis’ was rejected by The Pentagon.
• This is the second time the Defense Department denied a request from the District of Columbia.
• Thousands of migrants are being bused to the nation’s capital from Texas and Arizona.

The Pentagon once again denied a request by Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser to activate the National Guard to help with the migrants ‘crisis’ in her district. This is the second time the Defense Department denied a request from the nation’s capital after thousands of migrants have been arriving in the district in recent months.

Bowser’s initial request for National Guard was made last month, but it was denied by the Pentagon on Aug. 4. The Democrat mayor then sent another letter on Aug. 11, asking for 150 National Guard troops to “help prevent a prolonged humanitarian crisis in our nation’s capital resulting from the daily arrival of migrants.”

On Monday, Bowser received a letter from Defense Department executive secretary Kelly Bulliner Holly stating that the DC National Guard “has no specific experience in or training for this kind of mission or unique skills for providing facility management, feeding, sanitation or ground support.”

“Approval of this request would also result in a substantial readiness impact to the DCNG,” Holly added. “Devoting the personnel or the facility for such an extended mission would force the cancellation or disruption of military training.”

According to the office of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, an estimate of 7,000 migrants have been bused from his state to Washington, DC, since April and another 900 have been transported to New York City.

“Before we began busing migrants to New York, it was just Texas and Arizona that bore the brunt of all the chaos and problems that come with it,” Abbott said Friday. “Now, the rest of America can understand exactly what is going on.”

Bowser called Abbot’s move a “politically motivated stunt” but tweeted, “We will continue working with federal partners and local NGOs on the best way to set up systems that allow us to manage an ongoing humanitarian crisis.”

In March last year, Texas launched Operation Lone Star to manage the influx of migrants across the southern border.

Since then, Texas law enforcement officers have apprehended about 300,000 border-crossers and seized 326 million lethal doses of fentanyl, Abbott added.

Source: New York Post