Report: President Trump’s DHS Requests 20,000 National Guard Troops to Assist with Immigration



by Amy Furr 15 May 2025

President Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is reportedly asking for more than 20,000 National Guard members to help with immigration.

The New York Times quoted two U.S. officials in the report published Thursday.

“The request to the Defense Department came after President Trump asked the Department of Homeland Security last week to increase its ranks by pulling in 20,000 officers from state or federal agencies,” the newspaper continued:

Lawyers at the Pentagon were reviewing the request with “interior immigration enforcement,” according to a Defense Department official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal deliberations. It was unclear what role state National Guard members would play and whether they would be involved in rounding up people for deportation, the official said.
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National Guard troops have generally played a supporting role to domestic authorities in enforcing immigration issues at the border, including logistics, security and other assistance. But the Defense Department official said that if the request were approved, it would be the first time National Guard troops were used to help enforce an immigration crackdown in the United States.

Prior to his reelection, Trump in January 2024 urged governors to use their National Guard soldiers to remove migrants back across the border, Breitbart News reported at the time.

He said in part, “In the face of this National Security, Public Safety, and Public Health Catastrophe, Texas has rightly invoked the Invasion Clause of the Constitution and must be given full support to repel the Invasion.”

Trump has since made border security and immigration enforcement top priorities as his administration works to protect American communities who suffered under former President Joe Biden’s (D) disastrous open border policies.

In Trump’s first 100 days back in office, illegal border crossings dropped to historic lows, and his administration has been targeting thousands of criminal illegal aliens for deportation, Breitbart News reported April 30.

The outlet noted that “the president declared the border to be a national emergency and designated Mexican cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations.”

When speaking recently on people who decided to self-deport, Trump said, “What we thought we’d do is a self-deport, where we’re going to pay each one a certain amount of money, and we’re going to get them a beautiful flight back to where they came from,” also noting that those people will have a period of time and officials would work with them to return someday if they are good people who love America.

“And if they’re not, they won’t, but it will give them a path to becoming, you know, to coming back into the country,” Trump stated.

Meanwhile, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents recently arrested nearly 200 criminal illegals in Nashville, Tennessee, and the group included wanted killers, rapists, and drug dealers, per Breitbart News.

https://www.breitbart.com/immigratio...h-immigration/