PHOENIX — Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs has heard the questions all week: Why isn't she sending the Arizona National Guard to the border?
"A lot of the politicians calling for this action (aren't) understanding what the scope of their duties might be able to be," Hobbs told reporters Friday.
Shortly after making that statement, Hobbs released a letter to President Joe Biden: "Re: Urgent Request Regarding our Southern Border."
Hobbs urges Biden to order the Guard to help reopen the Lukeville Port of Entry, 180 miles southeast of Phoenix and 150 miles southwest of Tucson. The border crossing has been shut down since Monday.
Hobbs will get a close-up look at the border crisis during a trip to the Lukeville area on Saturday.
Maj. Gen. Kerry Muehlenbeck, Arizona's adjutant general and commander of Arizona's National Guard, will be with the governor for a meeting with CBP officials on how the Guard could help.
A historic surge of tens of thousands of migrants in the remote desert area, site of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Tohono O'odham Nation, has overwhelmed U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The Lukeville station has been temporarily closed so that agents there could help with processing migrants seeking asylum.
The closure expanded what was a security and humanitarian crisis into an economic crisis.
Lukeville is the border crossing for Arizonans heading to "Arizona's beach," in Puerto Penasco, known as Rocky Point.
What was a four-hour drive from Phoenix could now take six to eight hours, by driving to the San Luis border crossing three hours west of Phoenix.
Mexican visitors use the Lukeville crossing to see family or go shopping in Tucson or Phoenix. The holidays are a busy time.
Social media images from Rocky Point show deserted beaches and restaurants.
In her letter, here's what Hobbs wants from Biden:
- A federal deployment of 243 Arizona Guard members to help reopen the Lukeville Port of Entry. The port is believed to have been staffed by fewer than two dozen CBP agents.
- $512,529,333 in reimbursements for the state's border-related expenses -- for busing asylum-seeking migrants, stopping the flow of drugs and enforcing the law. Hobbs' office says she will keep billing the feds for all future expenses.
- If the Biden Administration doesn't reopen Lukeville, Hobbs says the state will spend up to $5 million for the National Guard to support the state Department of Public Safety and local law enforcement agencies along the southern border, including operations to block the flow of fentanyl.
Maj. Gen. Mick McGuire, former adjutant general of the Arizona National Guard, said in an interview that the Guard can't reopen the border crossing on its own.
Hobbs is "asking for additional money and assistance to bring more Guardsmen on duty to help try to open up the port," McGuire said in an interview Friday.
But he added: "There is no statutory authority" for Guard members to reopen the port.
"There are people that say just send the Guard down there to do it," McGuire said. "But the courts have ruled that ICE, (U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services) and CBP are the only three agencies that can enforce immigration law. So if you're not a posted officer in one of those agencies, you cannot arrest and detain somebody for an immigration violation."
The Guard's mission would be limited to supporting Customs and Border Protection agents.
"Screening people, determining their status, any of the rest, we always need somebody from the agency there," he said. "You're still going to have to bring those people that you've taken away from Lukeville back to Lukeville to open it up."
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