Thread: Border Guard shell game only a PR stunt

http://www.azstarnet.com/opinion/132974.php

Published: 06.10.2006

Border Guard shell game only a PR stunt
Our view: Hoopla around Utah unit's arrival lays credit where it's not due
It seems pretty much anything is fair these days when it comes to swaying public opinion in the debate over border enforcement — even a bit of obfuscation.

Case in point: The announcement earlier this week that a Utah National Guard unit had arrived in Yuma to support the Border Patrol.

The arrival of the 55 Utah guardsmen last Saturday prompted a flurry of news stories, including an Associated Press story that ran Tuesday in the Arizona Daily Star describing them as "the first to begin work under President Bush's plan to crack down on illegal immigration."

The plan, of course, is the president's promise to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border over the next year — a move the more cynical among us might attribute to the wheeling and dealing that led to the successful effort to get an immigration-reform package approved by the Senate.

It turns out the Guard unit, now working to improve roads and fencing near San Luis, had been scheduled for border duty for months, long before President Bush announced the new troop deployment.

Their mission here was to be just the latest in an ongoing effort by the National Guard in support of the Border Patrol. According to the Provo Herald, that changed suddenly on June 2, when the Guard unit got new orders from their superiors in Washington. The new orders didn't change the work they would be doing, but it did put their work under the umbrella of the president's plan, now dubbed "Operation Jump Start."

The AP had reported earlier in the week that the Utah Guard deployment was not a part of the president's deployment plan. On June 3, when it got word from its Utah staff about the change in orders, the AP reported that as well, without delving deeply into the reason behind the change — after all, the information was accurate.

Gov. Janet Napolitano and her staff knew that Guard units have been coming to the border to build fences and roads, conduct surveillance, analyze intelligence and even inspect vehicles in support of the Border Patrol for years. And they knew about the Utah Guard unit's sudden change in orders. But that didn't stop the governor's spokeswoman, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, from gushing to the AP about Arizona's pleasure and excitement that "this has finally got under way because the request has been in place for so long."

And it didn't stop the governor from heading to San Luis on Tuesday and inviting the press along as she greeted the soldiers and thanked them for coming to Arizona.

The problem with all of this is that the public was deceived. They were encouraged to believe that the president and the governor were delivering on a promise to act. In fact, the arrival of this National Guard unit didn't change the status quo.

On Friday, the governor announced that 300 more National Guard troops, mainly Arizona volunteers, will begin working at the border by the end of this week. But the governor's deputy director of communication, Pati Urias, acknowledged that that number includes some troops that were already scheduled for border duty.

Urias doesn't see that as a problem. The bottom line, she said, is that after months of lobbying the federal government about the need for more troops on the border, "there is now attention to the issue. … The fact is things are happening now."

Lets hope she's right, because regardless of how one views the Guard's deployment to the border, the problems illegal immigration creates on the border, whether it's the deaths of illegal entrants in the Arizona desert or the increased demands on emergency health care from overloaded smuggling vehicles crashing on Arizona roads, deserve real attention, not just the illusion that something is being done.

Doesn't surprise me a bit. It's all a game and ticking me off. Maybe they'll have the house and senate play "rock, paper, scissors" on all the issues of immigration, like the judge in Fl. is having 2 lawyers do.

The arrival of the 55 Utah guardsmen last Saturday prompted a flurry of news stories, including an Associated Press story that ran Tuesday in the Arizona Daily Star describing them as "the first to begin work under President Bush's plan to crack down on illegal immigration."

55 guardsmen arrived on the border -- 3,000 -5,000 illegals arriving daily

This newspaper's stand is a joke. They are so pro illegal immigration it isn't funny. (is that a mixed metaphor?)

Both Arizona's and New Mexico's Governors have come out saying it is a "good thing" to bring in these additional Guardsmen.