North Dakota panel OKs $2.2M to send Guard to border; taxpayers will foot bill

BISMARCK — The North Dakota Emergency Commission has approved a $2.2 million loan from the Bank of North Dakota to send state National Guard troops to the southern border.

The Emergency Commission approves funding requests between legislative sessions. The loan it approved Tuesday ultimately will be repaid to the state-owned bank with taxpayer money.

Gov. Doug Burgum earlier this month

ordered

the deployment at the request of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a fellow Republican, under the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, which facilitates state-level mutual aid nationwide. Abbott launched “Operation Lone Star” in 2021 to combat immigration issues at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“This is more than a Texas-southwest border issue,” North Dakota National Guard Adjutant Gen. Alan Dohrmann told the commission. “This is impacting all of the United States.”

Critics have questioned the effectiveness of the multibillion-dollar Texas operation. Democratic President Joe Biden in May announced plans to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the border to free up U.S. Customs and Border Protection workers to focus on fieldwork.

Dohrmann told the commission the issue is illegal drugs coming across the border,

Prairie Public reported

. He said the North Dakota Guard will send an engineering company to the border, along with a small liaison team. The deployment will last about 30 days. Dohrmann said the Wahpeton-based 188th Engineer Company is trained for what Texas needs.

“What they are doing in this state operation, that Texas is mounting down there, is making sure the border is secure in the areas the National Guard is controlling down there,” Dohrmann said. “And that any immigrants are going to authorized points of entry.”

Dohrmann said the Guard troops were originally going to go in the fall, but the decision was made to be there in August.

“We have so many college students, that if we send them in August, even if school starts just before they return, we can work with the (state) University System and the other colleges to make sure they either have hybrid learning options, or that there is a plan to allow them to enroll in the fall semester,” Dohrmann said. “August made the most sense.”

Dohrmann said the $2.2 million loan will be paid back to the bank through a deficiency appropriation in the next Legislative session. He said since it has been declared as a “national emergency,” Texas will not have to reimburse North Dakota.

Burgum early this month announced his intention to send the troops. Since then he has announced a bid for the Republican endorsement for president, and made national security one of three focuses of his campaign, along with the economy and energy policy.