Adjutant General Torrence Saxe, head of the Alaska National Guard, speaks at a Sept. 23, 2022, news conference in Anchorage. Behind him are Gov. Mike Dunleavy and Rep. Mary Peltola. (Photo by Yereth Rosen/Alaska Beacon)
The state of Alaska is planning to send members of its National Guard south to the Mexican border, responding to an order from the federal government for assistance securing the international boundary.
According to the Alaska National Guard, 20 Guardsmen and two helicopters could be deployed as soon as late September. Exact mobilization dates will be determined by the secretary of defense and the Department of the Army.
The deployment could put Alaska soldiers in the middle of an increasingly tense dispute between Texas and the federal government and would have those soldiers support a federal effort that Gov. Mike Dunleavy and his administration have repeatedly criticized.
It isn’t yet clear whether the Alaska soldiers would be deployed to Texas or one of the other states that are part of the federal government’s Southwest border mission .