“The national security justification offered by President Trump to utilize the National Guard at the US-Mexico border is yet another attempt to frighten immigrants and asylum seekers and convince Americans that immigrants and asylum seekers present a threat to American citizens. The crime rate is already lower for immigrants than for our native born, contrary to the president’s claims that the US gets only criminals and rapists from Mexico. And those seeking to enter the US illegally at our southern border are at a near record low. The rationale for use of the National Guard this way is spurious at best.

“But the new National Guard policy comes on the heels of the president blaming Democrats for the predicament of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — a crisis created by Trump himself when he reversed the Obama policy of allowing most of those brought to the US as children to work here and obtain an education or serve in the military without fear of deportation.

“The ongoing stalemate over immigration, worsened by President Trump’s erratic and incoherent approach to the topic, does a disservice to both would-be immigrants and to those persons already living in the US who lack legal status. It is a deep betrayal of Jewish values that demand that we welcome the stranger. It also betrays our national interest, which is to buttress our workforce with younger new workers and take 11 million people out of the shadows of our legal system. Unfortunately, the president takes his cues from Senior Policy Advisor Stephen Miller who insists that an anti-immigrant agenda should upstage all reasonable attempts to discuss immigration and asylum.

“The governors of the affected states should refuse to cooperate with this wrong-headed policy and misappropriation of state funds. The rest of us must insist to our lawmakers that he end it now.”