http://www2.sbsun.com/news/ci_2999441

Border agency to aid in relief

Brenda Gazzar, Staff Writer
San Bernardino County Sun

More than 200 Border Patrol agents and 300 other U.S. Customs and Border Protection personnel have been deployed to areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina, officials said.
Armed Border Patrol agents are there to support law enforcement efforts, and others will help provide air, marine and humanitarian support in New Orleans and other areas that were in the hurricane's path.

"Hurricane Katrina is one of the greatest natural disasters that this country has ever seen,' said Mario Villarreal, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection. "To aid in this effort, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has responded to our fellow citizens.'

The agency's 500-plus employees are joining 1,800 others from the Federal Emergency Management Agency who have been deployed for lifesaving and medical assistance, said Jarrod Agen, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

They also join 4,000 Coast Guard personnel from all over the country that have also been deployed, many of them before the hurricane hit. The Coast Guard has saved more than 4,000 people, including those on rooftops, in flooded neighborhoods and those stranded in hospitals, Agen said.

But T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, argued that the Border Patrol was already stretched too thin and deployment would make a difficult situation on the border worse.

"On the one hand, you go, `It's such a mess down there . . . people need relief,' ' he said. But "our borders are out of control at the same time. Where do you put your finite resources?'

Federal officials argued the deployment should not affect border security.

"The resources that have been deployed are throughout the United States,' Villarreal said, declining to name the Border Patrol sectors from which employees have been deployed. "That mitigates any possible operational impact.'