Guard to border on Brown’s terms

Despite continuing complaints from President Trump, Gov. Jerry Brown is sending up to 400 members of the California National Guard to the Mexican border — where they will follow his rules and not Trump’s.

In a statement released Wednesday, the governor said the troops would “combat criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers — within the state, along the coast and at the U.S.-Mexico border.” But he also

provided a wide-ranging list of what the California soldiers won’t be doing.

The Guard shall not “engage in any direct law enforcement role nor enforce immigration laws, arrest people for immigration law violations, guard people taken into custody for alleged immigration violations, or support immigration law enforcement activities,” Brown said.

The governor also made it clear that he, not Trump, is the ultimate commander of the California National Guard. He told Guard officials that they must refuse “missions that would exceed the mission scope and limitations outlined above, or missions that do not meet a valid state and/or national security interest.”

They also won’t be building Trump’s border wall, the governor said.

Brown said the federal government has agreed to pay for the California Guard’s operations. The deployment is scheduled to last at least until Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

While Brown announced last week that he would comply with the president’s request for California troops along the border, he and the president have clashed over just what that would entail. Trump first praised Brown, then turned against him when it became clear the governor wouldn’t let California troops enforce immigration laws.

“There is a Revolution going on in California,” Trump said in a Wednesday morning tweet. “Soooo many Sanctuary areas want OUT of this ridiculous, crime infested & breeding concept. Jerry Brown is trying to back out of the National Guard at the Border, but the people of the State are not happy. Want Security & Safety NOW!”

Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen was welcoming, tweeting: “Just spoke w @JerryBrownGov about deploying the @USNationalGuard in California. Final details are being worked out but we are looking forward to the support. Thank you Gov Brown!”

“With the federal government’s funding commitment and today’s order from the governor, a signature on the agreement (the state) sent last week is no longer necessary,” Evan Westrup, the governor’s spokesman, said in an email Wednesday evening. “The terms of this deployment are consistent with those spelled out in the letter the governor sent (to the federal government) last week.”

Trump said he wanted California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to the border, adding in a proclamation that he had “no choice but to act” because of the cross-border flow of illegal drugs, “dangerous gang activity and extensive illegal immigration.” The Republican governors of the other states promptly agreed without limiting their forces’ duties.

Brown has consistently tried to downplay his disagreements with Trump on the troop deployment. In an appearance Tuesday at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., he said the state was close to an agreement over the troops and that it was no big deal to add a few hundred more Guard soldiers to those already fighting cross-border crime and drug smuggling.

“There’s been a little bit of back-and-forth, as you always get with bureaucrats. But I think we can find common understanding here,” the governor said. “There‘s enough problems at the border and the interface between our countries that California will have plenty to do — and we’re willing to do it.”

Even in his mobilization order Wednesday, Brown tried to smooth over any dispute with federal officials.

The announcement “reflects two weeks of productive discussions between the Brown administration — including the California National Guard and the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services — and its federal counterparts,” the governor wrote, noting that it “follows similar targeted Guard assistance provided by the state in 2006 under President Bush and in 2010 under President Obama.”

That last part may be a nod to Democrats and others who have argued that California should refuse to cooperate with Trump, arguing that the president’s plan for sending troops to the border is just another attempt to get tough on immigrants.

Brown announced the deployment soon after he returned to California on Wednesday after a threeday trip to Toronto and Washington, D.C.