* One thing Sen. Sandoval does exceedingly well is get himself in the news. AP…

The Illinois Senate is urging Gov. Bruce Rauner to reject a presidential call to send National Guard troops to help secure the U.S.-Mexican border.

The Democratic-controlled Senate voted 33-22 Thursday to adopt a resolution urging the GOP governor not to comply if President Donald Trump makes a request.

Chicago Democratic Sen. Martin Sandoval sponsored the resolution a day after Rauner said he’d deploy troops if the Republican president asks. Sandoval says National Guard troops are needed at home and criticized similar moves by former GOP President George W. Bush and Democratic President Barack Obama. […]

Arizona, New Mexico and Texas have pledged state troops and Democratic California Gov. Jerry Brown acquiesced on Wednesday.

* Gov. Brown acquiesced? LA Times…

Gov. Jerry Brown agreed Wednesday to take money but not marching orders from President Trump in deploying 400 National Guard troops to various locations around the state, insisting any service members near the border would not enforce federal immigration law.

“Your funding for new staffing will allow the Guard to do what it does best: support operations targeting transnational criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers along the border, the coast and throughout the state,” Brown wrote in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and Defense Secretary James N. Mattis.

Brown was the last of the nation’s border governors to respond to Trump’s request for a beefed-up presence. In his letter, he said that he wanted to be “crystal clear” in what he was agreeing to provide.

“This will not be a mission to build a new wall,” Brown wrote. “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.”

* The “people escaping violence and seeking a better life” appear to be these asylum seekers…

Organizers with the “refugee caravan” say they are less than a week away from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border—but only the “most vulnerable” members of the group are left.

The caravan started on March 25, with more than 1,200 migrants fleeing poverty and violence in Central America (about 80% of caravan participants are from Honduras). The caravan made national headlines when President Donald Trump learned the migrants planned on seeking refuge in the United States. “It had better be stopped before it gets there,” Trump tweeted.

Trump then announced he planned to send 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to guard the border.

By now, only an estimated 250-300 migrants are expected to reach the U.S.-Mexico border near Tijuana next week, according to Rodrigo Abeja, a coordinator from Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a transnational organization that organized the caravan.

The remaining group is made up of mostly unaccompanied minors, women migrating on their own, and family units—“the most vulnerable individuals,” as Abeja described them.

The migrants who are seeking asylum when they reach the border have all been vetted by a team of more than 20 attorneys, Abeja told Splinter.

Fox News has run several breathless stories about the caravan.

* Sun-Times…

Sandoval said the resolution’s intent was to urge Rauner to put the safety of the state “ahead of his political ambitions and the political ambitions of the Trump administration,” by not deploying the state’s National Guard to the border.

State Sen. Dale Righter, R-Mattoon, called the resolution “premature,” considering Trump has not yet asked Rauner to deploy the Illinois National Guard. New Mexico, Texas and Arizona have pledged troops, and California this week said it would, as well.

But Rauner on Wednesday told reporters in Springfield he will honor the request should it be made.

* Related…

* Migrant caravans, Trump’s latest immigration obsession, explained