Gov. Bill Lee has offered to send additional Tennessee National Guard to Texas amid an increasingly politicized clash between state and federal officials over border patrol issues.
Lee joined Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and a contingent of other Republican governors in Eagle Pass, a Texas border city that has emerged as a flashpoint over immigration issues. Lee on Sunday called it a crisis, and the state previously sent 125 National Guard members to the area in October.
“It’s obviously been a crisis for many years now,” Lee said. “Republican governors have been sounding that alarm for many years.”
Lee issued public support for Abbott in January following a U.S. Supreme Cout ruling that allowed federal Border Patrol agents to remove razor wire bouys installed by Texas along the Rio Grande. Critics have called the razor wire inhumane and largely ineffective at addressing wider immigration issues. Last year, a woman and two children drowned trying to cross the river.
Abbot accused the Biden administration of breaking the compact with states .