RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) — We’re learning new details about Governor Glenn Youngkin’s plan to deploy 100 members of the Virginia National Guard to the southern border.
The National Guard says due to security reasons they can’t tell 8News exactly when troops will deploy, but it will be in the next few days. The mission will last for 30 days with troops from several bases including Portsmouth, Fredericksburg, and Lynchburg.
On July 6, Gov. Youngkin met with those troops ahead of their deployment and spoke to 8News.
“Five Virginians a day die from fentanyl poisoning,” Youngkin said. “Five today. Five will die tomorrow. That is just beyond belief that we have seen the free flow of fentanyl and other drugs across the Mexican border.”
However, Democrats like State Senator Scott Surovell (D-District 36) continue to speak out against the deployment, noting it will cost taxpayers $3.1 million.
“Three million dollars to be spent on this is a complete waste of money,” Surovell said. “If you want to spend $3 million to do something about fentanyl, we ought to create a state police squad that is focused on fentanyl interdiction, or we ought to use that as grants for local police departments to focus on fentanyl interdiction.”
Surovell said Youngkin’s decision will affect the commonwealth’s ability to recruit soldiers in the future.
“They didn’t sign up to go off on political stunts, that’s not why they signed up to be National Guardsmen,” Surovell said. “Whenever they get deployed like this, it takes them away from their jobs, their families. When you make those kinds of sacrifices, you expect to do it for the purpose for which you signed up and it wasn’t to go do border security in Texas.”
8News asked Youngkin about Surovell’s claim.
“He should have spoken to the National Guardsman that I spoke to today,” said Youngkin. “The men and women were incredibly professional. They told me particularly that they were pleased to be able to go serve. They understood exactly what we were trying to get done. I could actually see in them not only a pride for being in the National Guard but a pride to be able to serve in this particular mission.”
