Boise, Idaho – Governor Brad Little announced today he is following up on a promise he made during his State of the State and Budget Address – to send two more teams of Idaho State Police troopers to the Texas-Mexico border to assist with securing our nation’s border.

Governor Little also issued a proclamation today naming January “Idaho Stands With Texas in Securing the Nation’s Border Month.” View the proclamation here: https://gov.idaho.gov/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/idaho-stands-with-texas-proclamation.pdf

Texas Governor Greg Abbott this week declared Texas’ constitutional right to defend and protect itself in the face of the crisis at the southern border, and the nation’s Republican governors, including Governor Little, quickly came to his defense.

Idaho once again is leading the nation in deploying resources to help our neighbor states.

“We will work even harder to address the open border and its impacts because of the failure of the Biden-Harris administration to admit it’s even a problem. Human trafficking is modern day slavery. The cartel and other bad actors are taking advantage of our open border to manipulate and abuse the most vulnerable, including children,” Governor Little said in his State of the State speech. “To help curb human trafficking, my IDAHO WORKS plan calls for sending two more teams of Idaho State Police troopers to train and act as a force multiplier at our lawless southern border, as we did with fentanyl twice before.”

This time, Governor Little said the troopers will learn the best tactics to respond to those who smuggle and abuse vulnerable people.

“They will come back to Idaho with better knowledge to stop these perpetrators in our state and, as they did before, our troopers will debrief and train their law enforcement colleagues around the state when they return,” Governor Little said.

The troopers will be deployed in their new mission in the coming weeks.

Additional actions Governor Little has taken to help secure the border include:

In September of 2021, he joined half of the nation’s governors in issuing a joint letter to President Joe Biden requesting a meeting within 15 days to discuss the crisis at the southern border. The invitation for the President to listen had followed another request they sent earlier that year, which also went unanswered.

Following the 15-day period with no response from the Biden administration, Governor Little and other governors released 10 policy solutions the administration could enact immediately to protect America, restore security, and put us on a path to end the crisis at the southern border. The administration never responded, and the border crisis has only become more deadly and dangerous for both Americans and migrants in the time that has passed.

Governor Little sent a team of specialized state troopers to Arizona in 2021 to assist with drug interdiction, and joined half the nations’ governors in creating the American Governors’ Border Strike Force. He also joined a lawsuit challenging Biden’s Title 42 border decision.

Governor Little also hosted a roundtable with Idaho law enforcement in 2021 to discuss Idaho’s growing drug threat and the connection to the U.S.-Mexico border, and created Operation Esto Perpetua in March of 2022 to protect our children from drugs. Governor Little recommended and the Legislature approved $250,000 to carry out objectives of the initiative, and they directed another $1 million  to fight the deadly impacts of fentanyl. Governor Little’s Idaho First plan included even more resources to fight fentanyl.

In May of 2023, Governor Little announced the deployment of two teams of Idaho State Police troopers to the border of Texas to provide assistance to their efforts to secure the border as well as enhance the knowledge of our own law enforcement techniques through hands-on experience with cross-border smuggling, human trafficking, and drug interdiction. The teams then returned to Idaho to train other law enforcement agencies within the state. This fulfills a commitment Governor Little made in his State of the State and Budget Address that year.

In May of 2023, Governor Little traveled to Texas to attend a border security briefing alongside nine other governors to receive an overview of Operation Lone Star. This included an explanation of the tools and strategies that the State of Texas has found effective to deter and repel illegal immigration along the border with Mexico. This briefing was hosted by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, the Texas Military Department, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), and the Texas Border Czar, who all provided on-the-ground intelligence about the border crisis. Governor Abbott recognized the assistance Idaho and Florida have provided for Texas, and since then, thirteen states provided more than 1,300 guardsmen and more than 230 law enforcement personnel to attempt to slow to flow of drugs into the United States.

After his return, Governor Little assembled a roundtable of law enforcement, legislators, and others to discuss and determine new ways that Idaho can continue to provide assistance to border states as well as to gain additional experience on drug interdiction to protect our Idaho communities.

Finally, Governor Little announced in his 2024 State of the State and Budget Address that he would send another two teams of state troopers to Texas with a focus on assisting with and learning about tactics to deter human trafficking, and he signed on to a 25-Governor statement supporting the State of Texas’ efforts to defend and protect America from the consequences of the open border.