Obama Sends Team to Texas to Assess Need for National Guard Deployment

President Barack Obama has sent a team to Texas to assess whether a U.S. National Guard deployment would help to handle an immigration crisis at the Mexican border, White House officials told Reuters on Wednesday, having so far resisted Republican calls for such a move.

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The White House had previously resisted calls from Republicans to deploy the National Guard to fight the onslaught of migrants from Central America because most of the unaccompanied minors and others making the crossing were turning themselves in voluntarily.

But during a meeting with Texas Governor Rick Perry earlier this month, Obama said he was open to ordering the deployment as a temporary solution. He directed Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to send the team of evaluators to assess the situation, one White House official said.

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Perry, a potential Republican presidential candidate in 2016, said on Monday he would deploy up to 1,000 Texas National Guard troops to the state’s border with Mexico to boost its security efforts in fighting illegal immigration.

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