A departure ceremony for 40 National Guard members from the 142nd Field Artillery Brigade is scheduled for 9 a.m. Monday at Fort Chaffee Joint Maneuver Training Center near Barling in west Arkansas.
On March 19, Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders ordered 40 Arkansas National Guard members to the Texas border to support the Texas National Guard. They will spend 60 days there, returning on May 30, she has said.
Arrests for illegal crossings along the southern border hit record highs in December but fell by half in January, a shift attributed to seasonal declines and heightened enforcement by the U.S. and its allies. The federal government has not yet released numbers for February.
Sanders visited the border with 14 other governors on Feb. 4 to show their states' support for Texas' efforts on illegal migration.
The Arkansas National Guard has been sent to the border in Texas several times, including 50 members from the 875th Engineer Battalion out of Jonesboro in 2022 and 2023, 80 members June 24-Aug. 5 and 13 members for about three months in 2021, according to Maj. Cibeles Ramirez-Rodriguez, state Public Affairs Officer for the Arkansas National Guard.