INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Friday he will be sending the Indiana National Guard to support the ongoing border security mission in Texas.

Holcomb was one of 13 other governors who were at the U.S.-Mexican border in Texas earlier this week to receive detailed briefing from the frontlines.

“Federal negligence enforcing immigration law and the failure to secure our country’s border jeopardizes national and economic security, affecting every state, including Indiana,” Holcomb said in a news release. “We’ve worked too hard in Indiana attacking the drug epidemic for more Hoosier lives to be put at risk by a constant supply of killer drugs spilled over an open U.S. border. The only way to resolve this is to stop the historically high flow of illegal immigrants crossing the border.”

Fifty Hoosier Guardsmen will go to the southern border to support the Texas Natural Guard on its security mission.

According to a release, the soldiers will begin mobilizing for the mission and arrive in Texas in mid-March. They will also spend one week at Camp Atterbury for training and will then be deployed to Texas for 10 months.

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Statements

“Whatever the mission – whether it’s supporting a Hoosier community in the face of natural disaster, standing with our allies or against our adversaries overseas, or protecting the border – the soldiers and airmen of the Indiana National Guard are uniquely trained, equipped and capable of mobilizing whenever and wherever we’re called. We stand ready to support the Texas National Guard in securing the southern border.”

Maj. General Dale Lyles, the adjutant general of the Indiana National Guard

“The crisis at our nation’s southern border is a direct result of failed and rudderless leadership in Washington, D.C. I fully support Governor Holcomb’s decision to send members of our state’s committed and hardworking National Guard to support Texas and their efforts to stop the wave of illegal immigration and drugs into their state and ultimately to the rest of our country. The men and women in our guard are always ready to answer the call of duty, and I’m proud that Indiana is among the states to stand up against the Biden Administration’s dangerous and open border policies.”

Indiana House Speaker Todd Huston, a Republican from Fishers