Rick Perry Activates 1,000 National Guard Troops to Enforce the Border

‘I will not stand idly by while our citizens are under assault and little children from Central America are detained in squalor. We are too good a country for that to occur’

Texas Gov. Rick Perry plans to deploy up to 1,000 guardsmen to border (Fox News)

Gov. Rick Perry said Monday he is deploying up to 1,000 National Guard troops over the next month to the Texas-Mexico border to combat criminals that Republican state leaders say are exploiting a surge of children and families entering the U.S. illegally.

Perry, a vocal critic of the White House's response to the border crisis -- and who is mulling a second presidential run in 2016 -- said the state has a responsibility to act after "lip service" from the federal government.

He rejected suggestions that Texas was militarizing local communities by putting National Guard troops on the ground or that crime data along the border doesn't justify additional resources.

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