Des Moines, IA (Radio Iowa)– Governor Kim Reynolds is calling crossings at the southern border a major problem following a recent trip to Texas for a border security tour.

Reynolds deployed more than one hundred Iowa national Guard soldiers to Texas earlier this month to assist state authorities in operations at the border. She says drug-related deaths have increased by 35-percent in Iowa this year and the Iowa Department of Public Safety saying the drugs are primarily coming from Mexico.

The 109 National Guard soldiers from IOWA are due to return at the end of August. Governor Reynolds plans to send a group of State Patrol Troopers to Texas in September.