Oklahoma’s GOP governor opposes sending out-of-state troops to states that don’t welcome them
Oct 9, 2025, 12:47 PM | Updated: 2:22 pm
OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. (AP) — Oklahoma Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt, the chair of the National Governors Association, said Thursday that he opposes sending National Guard troops across state borders without the permission of the state receiving them.
The position from a sitting Republican official posed a rare rebuke of President Donald Trump’s push to send National Guard troops to cities in states where Democrats are in charge, including Chicago where Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker are waging a court fight to try to halt the deployment of Texas Guard members.
The administration is also trying to send California troops into Portland, Oregon.
Abegail Cave, a spokesperson for Stitt, said he supports Trump’s effort to help impose law and order in some cities and to aid federal agents removing immigrants who have committed crimes, but that National Guard troops from one state should not be deployed to another over the objection of the receiving state’s governor.
“When it’s governors working together, it’s a very different story, but this whole situation where one state’s governor is sending their national Guard troops over the objections of another state’s governor, that sets a very dangerous precedent,” Cave said.
Speaking to The New York Times on Thursday, Stitt said “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”
Stitt drew one key distinction: While he opposes sending groups across state lines where they’re not welcomed by the governors, he said that Trump should have federalized National Guard from Illinois instead to protect federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. That’s the approach Trump took over the summer went he sent National Guard to Los Angeles during protests there.
The National Governors Association, a bipartisan group, has experienced turmoil, with Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom threatening to leave the organization because of its silence over the troop deployments. The organization has still not taken a stance.
Stitt’s position puts him at odds with the state’s Republican Attorney General and officials in most other Republican-controlled states.
Oklahoma’s Gentner Drummond was among 20 Republican attorneys general to file a brief Wednesday supporting Trump’s administration in its legal battle to allow him to deploy Oregon and California National Guard troops in Portland.
In the filing, they say the president needs to be able to federalize National Guard and send troops to Oregon so that federal immigration resources are not diverted there. “Otherwise, states will continue to bear the costs of nonenforcement of federal immigration laws,” they said.
Most Republican-controlled state including Oklahoma, have also requested permission to file similar papers in the Illinois court case.
The Democratic attorneys general or governors of 24 states also filed jointly Wednesday to side with California and Oregon.
There’s a similar partisan split over the use of troops in Washington, D.C.
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Mulvihill reported from Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
