Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced on Thursday that up to 1,000 members of its national and state guards will be deployed to Texas to “stop the invasion at the southern border” in the latest development in the brewing fight over border security.

DeSantis said the deployments are in addition to more than 90 officers from the Florida Highway Patrol, the state Department of Law Enforcement, and Fish and Wildlife stationed at the border. Republican governors in the last several weeks have come out in support of Abbott’s actions to defy the federal government.

That includes Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma, Gov. Kristi Noem of South Dakota, Gov. Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, according to the Hill.

“We are sending more support from both the Florida State Guard and up to one battalion of the Florida National Guard,” DeSantis said in a social media post. “Their mission will be to assist Texas in erecting barriers at the border to stop the invasion of illegal aliens.”

The Florida Republican said additional officers are standing by to deploy to Texas as Abbott sees fit. DeSantis cited Customs and Border Protection data, which showed that more than 300,000 migrants were found trying to illegally cross the border in December.

This isn’t the first time Florida has sent officers to the border. Since 2021, the state has provided law enforcement and military assistance to Texas. In May, DeSantis deployed more than 1,000 troops ahead of the end of Title 42, a policy which restricted immigration asylum during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Associated Press reported.

Texas officials in the last several weeks have alluded to state secession, sparking calls for Biden to nationalize the state’s guard. Experts, however, say it is unlikely that Texas will leave the Union.

“The legality of seceding is problematic,” Eric McDaniel, associate professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin, told The Texas Tribune. “The Civil War played a very big role in establishing the power of the federal government and cementing that the federal government has the final say in these issues.”

In 1869 — one of Texas’ many attempts in its history to secede — Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase wrote for the court that when Texas entered the Union, “she entered into an indissoluble relation.”

This is the latest in Abbott’s and other Republican governors’ battle with the Biden Administration over U.S. immigration policy.

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Texas and Abbott to block what the agency called an “unconstitutional” immigration law that would make it legal for state judges to deport foreign-born people to Mexico despite their nationality. In December, migrants rights organizations filed a lawsuit stating that it was one of the most “extreme” bills in the country.

Also in January, Texas said it would not comply with President Joe Biden’s request to grant Border Patrol full access to the U.S.-Mexico border in the Shelby Park area of Eagle Pass, where a woman and her two children drowned in the Rio Grande. State Attorney General Ken Paxton denied responsibility for the family’s death and said Texas will continue using its “constitutional authority to defend her territory.”