Gov. Raimondo won’t send National Guard to southern border if President asks

By: Rebecca Turco

Email: rturco@abc6.com       

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Even though Rhode Island hasn’t been asked to send any National Guard members or equipment to the U.S.-Mexico border, the governor is preemptively saying the state won’t take part in any way.

Governor Gina Raimondo (D) feels children shouldn’t be separated from their parents as part of the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy.

"It’s wrong,” she told reporters Tuesday. "I’m not going to be a part of doing anything that I think is inhumane, unjust, Un-American, and just wrong."

Outcries and videos of children at detention centers in Texas are changing many leaders’ minds. On Monday, Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker (R) rescinded his offer to send a two-person flight crew to help with border patrol.

"The folks in Washington, Democrats and Republicans, should find a way to work together to get something done so that we aren’t a country that tears children away from their moms and their dads at the border,” he said. “There has to be a better answer to this than that one."

Governors from six other states are also taking their National Guard members off the table.

The trump administration insists the 2,000 kids in federal custody are being well taken care of. "We operate according to some of the highest standards in the country,” Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen said in a press conference Monday. “We provide food, medical, education and all needs that the child requests."

The Trump administration has said this policy is meant as a deterrent to keep families from illegally crossing the border. If the president chooses to federalize the states’ National Guards to help with enforcement, the governors won’t have a choice but to comply.

© WLNE-TV 2018