Unlikely state answers Trump's call to send National Guard to the border

In a surprise move Wednesday, California Governor Jerry Brown announced that he would be sending National Guard troops down to the border after President Trump called for the move.

Here's what Brown is doing for Trump

Brown made the announcement in a letter to Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen Wednesday.

"Pursuant to your request," Brown wrote, "the California National Guard will accept federal funding to add approximately 400 Guard members statewide to supplement the staffing of its ongoing program to combat transnational crime. This program is currently staffed by 250 personnel statewide, including 55 at the California border."

The 400 California National Guard members from California will add up to a total of 900 at the border when taken with 250 from Texas and 150 from Arizona already announced.

Trump called for the National Guard to be sent to the border last week, saying, “The situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis."

"The lawlessness that continues at our southern border is fundamentally incompatible with the safety, security, and sovereignty of the American people," he added. "My Administration has no choice but to act.”

No rounding up, or building the wall

Although Brown seemed to respond affirmatively to Trump's demand, he added that the California troops would not be fulfilling Trump's policies at the border.

"Let's be crystal clear on the scope of the mission," Brown continued. "This will not be a mission to build a new wall. It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. And the California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws."

"Here are the facts: there is no massive wave of migrants pouring into California," he said. "Overall immigrant apprehensions on the border last year were as low as they've been in nearly 50 years."

The White House responds to California

At Wednesday's White House press briefing, the administration's press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration was "glad to see California Gov. Jerry Brown work with the administration and send members of the National Guard to help secure the Southern border."

The government of California has been openly hostile to Trump's policies, and has responded to his call to end sanctuary cities with a strengthening of "sanctuary" laws to protect illegal aliens from the enforcement of federal immigration law.