Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Tuesday afternoon that the state will send Missouri National Guard and Highway Patrol units to the Texas-Mexico border as fellow Republican governors augment Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, a multibillion dollar border security effort.

Two Missouri National Guard units, including roughly 250 members, are currently working under a federal deployment to assist the Border Patrol with law enforcement.

Parson toured the border earlier this month with other GOP governors and promised Missouri support.

With an executive order, Parson will deploy up to 200 Missouri National Guard members on a rotating basis of roughly 30 days, and up to 22 Missouri State Highway Patrol troopers who Parson says have volunteered for the assignment.

The order includes a $2.3 million supplemental budget request to the General Assembly.

Troopers will begin their work by March 1, while the National Guard units will start on March 10.

The idea of sending personnel to Texas has support from important sections of the GOP supermajority in both chambers of the General Assembly.

“I support the governor and I support the state of Missouri and supporting Texas and what’s going on down there. The old adage of every state’s a border state right now is completely true and we’ll be here to stand with the governor,” said State Sen. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, Chair of the Senate Appropriations committee in an interview with Spectrum News on Friday.

Three of the leading Republican contenders looking to succeed Parson as governor are also supportive of the move, and would look to do it themselves if necessary if they were to take office.

Democrats have criticized Parson’s border visit as political theater and instead have called on him to urge the state’s delegation in Congress to support a bipartisan border security bill that fell apart in the Senate and House leadership has already said was dead on arrival there.