By Jasmine Hall
Jackson Hole News&Guide
Via- Wyoming News Exchange

JACKSON — Gov. Mark Gordon plans to send another set of Wyoming law enforcement personnel to the southern border in response to an aid request from Texas.

The 10 Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers will deploy later in August, and will provide law enforcement and emergency assistance on the border of Mexico in support of the Texas Department of Safety for two weeks. Two Wyoming deputies from the Natrona County Sheriff’s Office also plan to deploy at a later date.

The announcement comes after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott made a request for emergency assistance from states across the nation.

It is not the first time Wyoming has supported Texas on border control.

Last August, the governor authorized the deployment of eight employees of the Wyoming Department of Corrections and local law enforcement.

Gordon’s assistance of Texas falls in line with the relationships he’s cultivated in his two terms as governor and his strong opposition to the border policies of the Biden-Harris administration. Immigration has emerged as one of the top issues in the 2024 presidential election.

In a statement, Gordon said he was committed to “closing the open Biden-Harris border.”

“As part of our ongoing relationship with Texas, we will supply resources as they are requested while also making sure we are safe here at home,” Gordon said. “We are immensely grateful for the willingness of Wyoming law enforcement members and their families to assist in this important effort to help secure our southern border.”

The aid has been returned. Following the 2023 deployment, Texas Rangers traveled to Wyoming earlier this year to provide training to Wyoming law enforcement officers.

Republican Rep. Andrew Byron in Hoback said he fully supports the decision.

“The United States needs secure borders,” Byron said, “and I commend Wyoming’s law enforcement members that will assist in the effort.”

But not all Teton County lawmakers agreed with the reasoning of the governor.

“I believe in defending the border, but ultimately am extremely disappointed in the governor’s message,” said Rep. Mike Yin, a Jackson Democrat.

Yin said that Gordon neglected to say that it was Republicans who blocked attempts in Congress earlier this year to pass a border package.

“It was Republicans who asked for the bipartisan deal in the first place,” Yin said.

The Associated Press reported that Republicans first proposed the package filled with southern border policy compromises and funding for Ukraine, but rejected the legislation “as election-year politics set in.”

Without a federal package, states have continued acting independently and as coalitions. Wyoming is one of over 15 states digging into their own budgets to send personnel to the southern border, according to reporting from the North Dakota Monitor.

Gordon joined 25 governors in 2022 in creating the American Governor’s Border Strike Force. Gordon said his support of the Texas governor is also a response to the rising prevalence of fentanyl in the Cowboy State. The potentially lethal drug is often carted illegally through the southern border.

During the 2024 legislative session, Wyoming lawmakers allocated $750,000 to the Governor’s Office for expenses to assist border state law enforcement efforts. Members of the anti-establishment Republican Freedom Caucus pushed for even more to be sent directly to Texas.

But other lawmakers shot down the move, calling the $2 million ask “fiscally irresponsible.” Instead, only $750,000 was allocated to the Governor’s Office for his distribution.

Yin said handing the money straight to another state was “likely unconstitutional” and said Freedom Caucus members shouldn’t have been willing to hand over funding without any accountability.

“Our national security shouldn’t be a political plaything when people’s lives are at stake,” Yin said.