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Two governors—one a Democrat, the other a Republican—announced on Monday that they would refuse to deploy National Guard troops to the border due to the Trump administration’s “inhumane” treatment of immigrant families. Both New York Democrat Andrew Cuomo and Massachusetts Republican Charlie Baker used that word: “inhumane.”
Baker had previously agreed to send a helicopter and military analysts to the southwest, but, with family separation in the news, he changed his tune:
“It’s cruel and inhumane, and I told the National Guard to hold steady and not go down to the border — period,’’ Baker said. “So we won’t be supporting that initiative unless they change their policy.”
For his part, Cuomo said that “We will not be complicit in this ongoing human tragedy.”
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper took a somewhat different approach signing an executive order “forbidding state agencies from using state resources for the purpose of separating children from their parents or legal guardians on the sole ground that their families are in violation of federal immigration laws.”
When Trump called for National Guard troops to deploy to the border, in April, Oregon Gov. Kate Brown said she would refuse, while Montana Gov. Steve Bullock said he wouldn't deploy National Guard troops “based simply on the whim of the President's morning Twitter habit,” though he left open the possibility of doing so in response to a request from a border state governor. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said at the time that he would have serious questions before considering such a request.