http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1- ... 457790.php

January 03, 2007

Ex-JAG tapped to lead Border Patrol task force

The Associated Press

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Richard Puglisi could hardly have imagined it would come to this when he joined the Naval Reserve during law school.

Now a federal magistrate judge in Albuquerque and a colonel in the Army National Guard, his coming deployment is far from the high seas.

Come Feb. 1, Puglisi will be commanding officer of a joint task force working with the U.S. Border Patrol in Deming — peering through infrared binoculars at the scrubby landscape toward Mexico and living in the 21st-century version of a tent in the desert.

Puglisi, who goes by “your honor” during his day job, is called “sir” as a colonel in the Army National Guard.

Puglisi spent four years on active duty as a member of the Navy’s Judge Advocate General Corps at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, after law school. He handled the defense and prosecution of sailors and officers accused of “every kind of low-level felony you can think of” — most of them involving drugs — and even won an acquittal in a murder case.

But back in New Mexico, there wasn’t a lot of Navy action.

Puglisi had quit the reserves until a lawyer buddy persuaded him to join the Army National Guard. He’s been a colonel for eight years.

During that time, he’s been through command staff school in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., and the Army War College in Carlisle, Pa.

Puglisi’s past Guard duties have taken him to Vicenza, Italy, where his unit took over for paratroopers called to Bosnia.

Puglisi said he never envisioned himself going to command an operation at the border.

“I thought maybe Iraq, a war crimes effort ... or Guantanamo [in Cuba].”

Puglisi will take over from Col. Richard Rael on the New Mexico part of Operation Jump Start, which is taking Guard troops from around the country to help monitor illegal immigrant crossings on the border.

Task Force Zia, New Mexico’s part of the effort, formally opened just before Thanksgiving from a forward operating base in Deming that beds, feeds and provides activities for 350 National Guard soldiers.

The base, constructed and managed by an Alabama military contractor, consists of a series of domes, similar to the bases set up in Iraq.

The population will fluctuate, Puglisi said. Duration forces will be there six months to a year, others for two- to three-week periods. Puglisi will be there from February through April.

The mission is observation, surveillance and reconnaissance.

“Most of the illegals come in at night,” he said. “All we do, basically, is find them.

“The sites are all mobile and move frequently, which I think is key to the whole operation. One of the main parts of this job will be coordination between the Border Patrol and the Guard.”

Posts are a couple of miles apart, using soldiers with binoculars and Air Force reservists operating radar.

Puglisi thinks he may be the first JAG officer to be asked to command, but in a way it makes sense.

“This whole operation is intensely legal, which is why I think they wanted me to go,” he said.

Puglisi has unique experience with the issue, having presided over thousands of guilty pleas from noncitizens who entered the U.S. illegally or were involved in drug trafficking.

“One of the benefits of going to the border is ... it’ll give me a new perspective, because as a judge you’re dealing with cold, hard facts, so you sort of lose the humanity of the situation,” he said.

Border issues are “a huge problem, bigger than what we just see here in federal court,” Puglisi said.

The Guard isn’t there as law enforcement, but rather as the “eyes and ears” for the Border Patrol.

“We’re not allowed to make arrests,” Puglisi said. “All of our guys have been instructed on the rules of engagement. The Border Patrol is on the border to enforce immigration laws. The Guard is there because we have manpower and sophisticated equipment to conduct surveillance. It’s a limited role, but ... it’s a good idea.”