Fact check: Which governors have refused to deploy National Guard troops to the US-Mexico border?

1. What the original 2018 claims say — a moral refusal becomes a political fact

Reporting from June 2018 records at least eight governors who refused to send National Guard troops to the southern border in direct response to the Trump administration’s “zero-tolerance” family-separation policy. These accounts name governors from New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Massachusetts, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as having either withheld new deployments or withdrawn existing personnel until the policy changed ^{[1] [2] [3]}. The refusals were framed as ethical protests against federal policy; governors tied their decisions to state values and directed orders to withhold state resources until federal practice shifted, creating an early template of state-level pushback to federal immigration enforcement.

2. The 2025 episode expands the dispute into interstate and legal arenas

In 2025 the issue re-emerged with new legal and political flashpoints when the federal government sought to authorize Guard deployments across states and to augment operations beyond the southern border, prompting another round of gubernatorial resistance. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker explicitly refused to deploy troops, characterizing federal directives as attempts to “manufacture a crisis,” while Oregon’s governor faced a temporary federal judicial block that cited constitutional and sovereignty concerns; California’s governor threatened litigation over orders moving Guard troops into Oregon under judge’s mandates ^{[4] [5] [6]}. This phase shifted the debate from moral protest to constitutional boundaries and federal-state command authority disputes.

3. Organized gubernatorial opposition: a coordinated Democratic push in 2025

By late August 2025, 19 Democratic governors issued a joint statement opposing the federal plan to reassign state National Guard units, calling federal actions “chaotic” and an abuse of power, explicitly opposing sending state troops out of state without consent or for political theatrics ^[7]. That coordinated statement represents an escalation from isolated refusals to collective political signaling, aligning governors across regions to defend state sovereignty over Guard forces and to reject what they framed as politically motivated federal deployments. The statement functioned as both policy resistance and a public relations counterweight to federal narratives.

4. Republican dissent complicates the partisan picture and highlights governance tensions

Resistance was not strictly partisan: Oklahoma Republican Governor Kevin Stitt publicly opposed sending National Guard troops across state lines to states that did not welcome them, breaking with other Republican officials aligned with federal positions and highlighting institutional concerns about precedent and mutual consent among governors ^{[8] [9]}. Stitt’s stance underscores a governance argument separate from the policy merits of immigration enforcement: governors worry about setting a precedent that would permit one governor or the federal government to redeploy another state’s forces without that state’s approval, potentially undermining the traditional dual state-federal command relationship over the National Guard.

5. Legal interventions and judicial blocking orders became central in 2025

The 2025 disputes included immediate judicial involvement, notably a federal judge in Portland issuing a temporary block on troop deployments that raised constitutional and state-sovereignty questions, and subsequent threats of lawsuits from state attorneys general and governors, as seen in California’s plan to sue over troop movements into Oregon ^{[5] [6]}. These legal actions reframed the refusals from unilateral executive decisions to contested judicial matters, with courts poised to interpret the limits of federal authority over state forces and the applicable statutes governing interstate use of the National Guard.

6. What remains unresolved and what the combined records show

Across both episodes, the combined record shows a pattern where governors invoke ethical, constitutional, and sovereign prerogatives to refuse or withdraw Guard units: in 2018 the trigger was family-separation policy; in 2025 the trigger was federal attempts to reassign Guard troops across states and to use them for domestic political aims. The documents indicate at least eight named governors in 2018 and a larger, more organized set of refusals in 2025—19 Democratic governors jointly opposing federal plans plus outspoken Republican dissent—leaving the exact contemporary list of individual governors varying by date and legal developments ^{[1] [2] [3] [7] [8]}.

7. Bottom line for readers seeking a definitive list

If you need a definitive, contemporary roster, the sources here provide snapshots rather than a single exhaustive list: the 2018 reports identify specific governors who refused at that moment ^{[1] [2] [3]}, while 2025 materials document broader refusals, public statements, and legal challenges involving governors such as JB Pritzker and others who joined a 19-governor statement or publicly opposed interstate deployments ^{[4] [7]}. For an exact, up-to-the-minute list, consult state press releases or the National Guard Bureau summaries tied to the specific deployment orders and court rulings cited above.