AUSTIN Texas (Reuters) - Texas plans to begin winding down its deployment of state National Guard troops to the border with Mexico around March or April of next year, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst told reporters on Wednesday.
State leaders on Tuesday requested $86.1 million in spending from Dec. 1 through August for the border deployment that includes up to 1,000 National Guard troops.
Dewhurst said at a news conference at the capitol in Austin that while the National Guard presence is being drawn down, there would be an enhanced presence of Department of Public Safety officers along the border, the Austin American-Statesman reported.
"The surge is working," Dewhurst, a Republican, said.
Texas Governor Rick Perry, a possible Republican candidate in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, announced the National Guard deployment in mid-2014 when a flood of unaccompanied minors from Central America was coming across the border.
Perry and Dewhurst said the surge of Texas lawmen and troops was needed because the Obama administration was not doing enough to protect the border. Dewhurst said on Wednesday the surge has led to a decrease in criminal activity in the region.
But Democrats have questioned the deployment, saying data show the flow of children was slowing before the Texas surge even started and that federal crime statistics indicate the border region has been one of the safer places in the state for years.
They also note that more U.S. Border Patrol agents have been assigned to the border region and the National Guard does not have the power to arrest, raising questions about what the troops are doing.
The Mexican government said Perry was trying to manipulate border security for his own political purposes with the National Guard troop deployment.
(Reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Eric Walsh)