Missouri’s deployment to the southern border expires soon. Will Gov. Parson extend it?

Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s executive order to send Missouri National Guard members to the Texas border with Mexico expires next week, raising questions about whether the Republican governor will extend the deployment.

Parson signed the order in February, sending up to 200 National Guard members and 22 State Highway Patrol troopers to aid Texas, which has promoted a plan dubbed “Operation Lone Star” that uses Texas state resources to combat illegal border crossings.

With the June 13 expiration date looming, Sen. Lincoln Hough, a Springfield Republican who chairs the Senate’s powerful budget-writing committee, sent a letter to Parson on Wednesday supporting an extension of the executive order.

“If you decide to continue Missouri’s involvement, you have my full support in securing the border through Operation Lone Star,” Hough, who is running for lieutenant governor, wrote in the letter. “Funding this order is crucial for safeguarding our border and protecting Missouri and its communities.”

Parson, while visiting Texas last month, signed off on $2.2 million to fund the deployment through June 13. However, Missouri lawmakers attached to the state budget an additional $8 million that would fund the deployment through the next fiscal year.

The Republican governor, who terms out of office this year, has not yet signed or vetoed that additional money. Last month, he pushed back on the addition, vowing to veto “part of that.”

“We’ve never asked for that,” Parson told reporters at the time. “We don’t need that money. I think that was more of a political statement people were trying to make.”

Parson spokesperson Johnathan Shiflett said in an email that Parson’s office was “assessing our options regarding Missouri’s Southern Border deployment as we approach the expiration” of the executive order.

“If we have something to announce, we will likely do so before the order expires,” Shiflett said.

Shiflett did not answer a question about whether Parson would veto the additional money in the budget, saying only that Parson “is expected to take action on the FY25 budget before the end of fiscal year, June 30.”

Hough said in an interview that he sent the letter to Parson after returning from a visit to El Paso at the southern border with Mexico. He described a lack of infrastructure and stories he was told about interactions between border control officials and criminals.

“It’s bad,” he said. “What are the long-term criminal consequences from allowing this to continue?”

He added, “I don’t know of another country in the world who has just an open border for anyone to come into.”

Since March 15, roughly 50 Missouri National Guard soldiers have served “side by side” with soldiers from Texas, Parson’s office said last month.

Parson’s decision to send Missouri troops to help Texas was noteworthy as roughly 250 Missouri National Guard members were already deployed to the southern border to work with President Joe Biden administration’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency.

The Texas initiative is separate from federal border enforcement activities. The dual efforts, which include a dispute between Texas and the federal government over the use of razor wire, have escalated into a broader standoff between state and federal officials.

However, Hough said on Thursday that the two operations are working together.

“These aren’t siloed operations,” he said. “They are working in concert.”

The Missouri deployment comes as Republicans across the country have sought to draw attention to illegal immigration and the U.S.-Mexico border ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

While Republicans have called for stricter border control efforts, conservatives in the U.S. Senate in February killed a bipartisan $118 billion plan. Missouri’s two senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, voted against the deal.

Hough, in his letter to Parson, said he also supported divisive amendments to the state budget that, if signed by Parson, would require cities that welcome undocumented immigrants to pay back all state funds.

However, Missouri law already bans cities from welcoming undocumented immigrants. The amendments are targeted at Kansas City, but Mayor Quinton Lucas has said he has no plans to make the city a sanctuary city for illegal immigration. The effort comes as Missouri Republicans repeatedly distort comments Lucas made welcoming migrant workers.

At least one Democratic lawmaker, Rep. Robert Sauls from Independence, told The Star on Thursday that he agreed with Hough that the order should be extended.

However, Rep. Ashley Aune, a Kansas City Democrat, has previously criticized Parson for tying the fentanyl crisis to illegal immigration, saying the Republican governor was “scapegoating immigrants to distract from his inability or unwillingness to actually address them.”

Aune pointed to a report from the Cato Institute, a Libertarian think tank, that used 2021 sentencing data to show that a large majority of convicted fentanyl traffickers were U.S. citizens compared to undocumented immigrants.

But Hough said on Thursday that it’s “necessary” for Missouri to send additional money to help Texas’ border operations.

“After witnessing firsthand what’s going on, any resources that can…help aid in that operation, we need to do,” he said. “It’s that bad.”