National Guard cutting presence at border
Western senators urge extended deployment
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 25, 2007 12:00 AM

Half of the 6,000 National Guard troops sent to help secure the Mexico border are gone.

The rest will be gone by next summer, as planned, even though the federal government may not be ready to fill the void left by the troops' departure.

Senators from Arizona, California and New Mexico all have urged President Bush not to reduce the Guard's border presence and instead to extend Operation Jump Start, the troop deployment that began in June 2006. All Guard troops are scheduled to leave by July 15.

"Everyone agrees the border must be secured," said Maj. Paul Babeu, who commands Jump Start's Task Force Yuma, an area that has seen the mission's most dramatic results. "We at the Guard are a critical component in securing that border. The right thing to do is to continue that job until the Border Patrol believes it can sustain the mission without our support."

Border Patrol agents have said for months that they appreciate the help. Officials did not return calls about whether the mission should continue.

By every measure available, Guard troops have helped slow the flow of smugglers and improve the capability of the Border Patrol. They also have bought time for the government, which is working to introduce more lasting security improvements to the border.

But the government is behind on one key project and scrambling to meet another:

• The June unveiling of the 28-mile network of satellite-linked cameras and sensors known as a virtual fence was delayed. The Department of Homeland Security now concedes that a fourth attempt at final testing on the system in Sasabe can't begin until October because a series of technical glitches prevent the devices from relaying information accurately.

• The government, through the 2005 Secure Border Initiative, required the Border Patrol to add 2,500 agents by next month and a total of 6,000 by December 2008, to bring the total force to 18,000. The Border Patrol reports that it has added 2,400 agents since the Guard arrived, when there were 11,594 agents. But the patrol would not release its attrition rate, so it is unclear how many agents still are needed.


Extra help at the border
The National Guard gives the Border Patrol extra capabilities.

Guard task forces add staff that allow more agents to patrol rather than do clerical work. National Guard troops also are positioned in strategic observation nests that steer smugglers toward more remote areas, buying agents time to intercept border crossers.

Another Arizona task force has further slowed crossers by erecting fences and vehicle barriers. And Border Patrol agents can reach smugglers faster because another task force has constructed roads and improved damaged ones along the international line. The task force is finishing its fence-building quota this week.

Borderwide, military engineers have repaired 456 miles of roadway, far in excess of the 211-mile goal set for Operation Jump Start, according to the National Guard Bureau.

The same is true for aerial support missions. In July, the Guard flew 1,246 hours, exceeding the 1,000-hour goal, despite many of its helicopters being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan.

"I've never been on a mission with more value added to our state or our country as this mission," said Arizona native Col. Mark Hughes, a 35-year Guard member who commands Task Force Tucson.

Others agree, which is why the plan to remove all troops by next summer is drawing fire.

"Americans could rightly question why the administration has dedicated 160,000 National Guardsmen to maintain order and security in Iraq, while eliminating the less than 6,000 Guardsmen performing an important task on our own southern border, which most agree is in a state of crisis," Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., wrote in July to President Bush. Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Pete Domenici, R-N.M., also signed the letter.

A congressional audit this year concluded it was unclear whether the Guard could "successfully perform its domestic missions, including responding to large-scale multistate events."

Col. David Lively, who oversees the national Operation Jump Start mission, said an engineering battalion bound for Arizona was diverted at the last minute for the war.

Technical difficulties
The virtual fence has proved particularly troublesome.

The plan is to secure the area around Sasabe with a network of nine pole-mounted cameras, radar and ground sensors.

The technology is a cornerstone of the government's border strategy for life after the National Guard. Ultimately, there may be as many as 1,800 towers strung along the border.

The devices are supposed to focus cameras on targets moving across the border and relay, via satellite uplink, the information to a command center instantaneously. Then an image of the crossers is supposed to go straight to a patrol truck.

But the cameras track targets 30 seconds late, and rain can disrupt the ultra-sensitive radars, say federal and congressional sources with intimate knowledge of the project. Those sources say contractors underestimated the challenge of integrating off-the-shelf technology on the border. Congressional auditors are in Arizona to investigate.


Results from cooperation
Nowhere on the entire 1,950-mile Mexican frontier does hiring new agents matter more than in the Tucson Sector, which has more border crossing and drug smuggling than any of the nine sectors.

Yet it got the smallest bump in new hires, a 15 percent increase from 2006 to 2007. The average was 23 percent.

Along the entire border, arrests of undocumented immigrants have dropped 30 percent. In the Yuma area, arrests fell 70 percent. In Tucson, they were down 15 percent.

Even as Guard troops have pulled back over the past two months, the number of arrests continued to fall, by as much as 94 percent in some places, Babeu said.

The accomplishments are despite the fact that, in many areas, the Guard does not have the resources it needs.

At his base in Marana, Maj. George Harris has never had a full complement of helicopters for his mission. But that hasn't prevented tangible results.

Less than two hours into a six-hour flight last week, Harris spotted a white shoe poking out from a tree, then watched a "coyote" run.

There were a dozen undocumented immigrants huddled 27 miles from Mexico.

Harris circled above as he called in coordinates to a Border Patrol truck, which arrived in about 20 minutes.

Without eyes in the sky, the Border Patrol probably would not have detected the group.

Harris also can locate new smuggling routes. Twenty minutes after take-off, he landed at a huge new campground, littered with backpacks, water bottles and gas cans.

Harris' task force has logged 7,000 hours of missions, leading to nearly 8,800 arrests and the seizure of more than 50,000 pounds of marijuana.

It took Harris five years to seize that amount when he was flying counterdrug missions.

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