INDIANAPOLIS -- A spokesperson for Ind. Gov. Eric Holcomb said the governor is "not focused on" the Trump administration proposal to use National Guard troops to round up unauthorized immigrants.
The Associated Press reported the proposal Friday morning.
When contacted about the proposal, a spokesperson for Holcomb said, "This is not something the governor is focused on."
The proposal, according to a document obtained by the AP, calls for the unprecedented militarization of immigration enforcement as far north as Portland, Oregon, and as far east as New Orleans, Louisiana.
Four states that border on Mexico are included in the proposal — California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas — but it also encompasses seven states contiguous to those four — Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana.
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Governors in the 11 states would have a choice whether to have their guard troops participate, according to the memo, written by U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired four-star Marine general.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said the report was "100 percent not true."
"It is false," he said. "It is irresponsible to be saying this. There is no effort at all to round up, to utilize the National Guard to round up illegal immigrants.”
Gen. Joseph Lengyel, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, said his office doesn't know anything about the reports.
.@WhiteHouse has denied reports concerning the potential mobilization of National Guard members for immigration enforcement. Tweet 1/2
— Gen. Joseph Lengyel (@ChiefNGB) February 17, 2017
We don't know anything about where this report is coming from. Tweet 2/2
— Gen. Joseph Lengyel (@ChiefNGB) February 17, 2017
While National Guard personnel have been used to assist with immigration-related missions on the U.S.-Mexico border before, they have never been used as broadly or as far north.
Spokespeople for the governors of Arizona, Utah, Nevada, California, Colorado, Oklahoma, Oregon and New Mexico said they were unaware of the proposal, and either declined to comment or said it was premature to discuss whether they would participate when contacted by the AP. The other three states did not immediately respond to the AP.
