CONCORD – Gov. Chris Sununu on Tuesday asked members of the Fiscal Committee to authorize $850,000 for 15 volunteer members of the New Hampshire National Guard to be stationed at Eagle Pass, Texas on active duty to support security activities at the southern U.S. border.
Rep. Mary Jane Wallner, D-Concord, Ranking Member on the House Finance committee and member of the Fiscal Committee, called the request “entirely inappropriate.”
The Fiscal Committee meets Friday. The funds would allow the 15 guardsmen to be on active duty for up to 90 days.
In the letter to the committee, Sununu said: “Simply stated, in the absence of a willingness at the federal level to secure our border, states (both individually and collectively) must undertake efforts to protect the safety of their citizens.”
Wallner said: “The Governor’s desire to spend nearly $1 million of New Hampshire’s general funds to fix an issue that Republicans in Congress have failed to address is entirely inappropriate.
“Rather than pushing for real solutions and backing the bipartisan border legislation that passed the U.S. Senate, Governor Sununu and Donald Trump want to play up the crisis at the southern border to sow fear and division in an election year.
“If Governor Sununu really wants to address the southern border, he should encourage Speaker Johnson and his Republican colleagues in the U.S. Congress to support the bipartisan bill that was just sent to them by the U.S. Senate. Americans want solutions — not political stunts,” Wallner said.
Earlier this month Sununu, along with 13 fellow governors, joined Texas Governor Greg Abbott for a briefing on the Operation Lone Star mission to secure the southern border. The visit came after Governor Sununu joined 24 of his fellow governors in writing to the Biden Administration in support of Texas’ constitutional right to self-defense and efforts to prevent the flow of illegal immigrants, deadly drugs, and human trafficking along the southern border.
This request comes after Sununu last year requested and obtained $1.4 million for the Northern Border Alliance Program for state police, local police, border patrol and fish and game to work together on New Hampshire’s border with Canada.