These guard units are armed? Well, duh, they ought to be.

Oct 29, 2006
http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=5604533

Guard's hands-off approach tightens border security

TUCSON, Ariz. -- Perched on a hilltop near the border in the rolling hills east of Nogales, National Guard Tech. Sgt. Nick Livingston and his crew scan the horizon from east to west looking for illegal border crossers.


With rifles at their sides, binoculars around their necks and bulletproof vests underneath their camouflage fatigues, Livingston, 33, of Cincinnati, and three other Guardsmen form one of the entrance identification teams that stand post next to army-green tents along the Mexican border.

They aren't allowed to apprehend illegal immigrants or leave their post. Their mission is to be extra eyes and ears for the Border Patrol. They did that well, said Border Patrol officials who credit the Guard with playing an integral role in slowing illegal immigrant traffic across the Arizona border this summer.

"As soon as they got here, we noticed a big drop in apprehensions and entries," said Gustavo Soto, Border Patrol spokesman.

Yet, experts say the National Guard has a minuscule impact on illegal immigration that has deep roots in Mexico and the United States. Local immigrant advocates worry about the increased militarization of the border.

"I don't believe the presence of the National Guard will have any long-term, lasting impact on the inflow of illegal workers," said Daniel Griswold, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based libertarian public-policy research foundation. "This is more symbolism than solution."

Border Patrol officials point to decreases in apprehensions, which they use to gauge illegal-immigrant traffic, and border deaths as evidence of the Guard's impact. A heavy monsoon and increases in agents and fencing also played a part in the decreases, said agency officials and experts.

In the Tucson Sector, from July 1 through Sept. 21, border deaths dropped 46 percent and apprehensions dropped 27 percent from the same time the year before, Soto said. In the Yuma Sector, deaths dropped 29 percent and apprehensions 66 percent, said Lloyd Easterling, a Border Patrol spokesman.

The 1,950 National Guard troops in Arizona have also built four miles of fencing and 15 miles of vehicle barriers and regraded at least 150 miles of access roads. They have assisted with vehicle and helicopter maintenance and in camera control rooms.

Earlier this summer at Smuggler's Gulch east of Nogales, Guard engineers cut through the canyon walls and used the dirt to build a 25-foot land bridge for a gravel access road that allows Border Patrol agents to speed back and forth in pursuit of illegal immigrants.

"Basically what used to be a goat trail is now like an interstate for the Border Patrol," said National Guard Sgt. Edward Balaban.

But just as they've done for decades, smugglers have likely already reacted to the latest move by the U.S. government and found new routes around the identification teams and new fences and vehicle barriers, Griswold said.

Even if that's the case, it doesn't mean the National Guard's work is in vain, said National Guard Chief Master Sgt. Terry Libbert.

"We're making them work a lot harder," he said. "They're having to go into areas that are a lot further out."

The Guard's presence has been useful to the Border Patrol in its quest to secure the border, but that's only one part of a multi-pronged approach needed to create tangible change, said Steven Camarota, director of research at the D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, which supports tighter immigration controls.

"Securing the border is only one piece in a much larger puzzle," he said. "It's a small, pretty modest part of a much larger set of things that we would have to do, and we're not doing them."

Guard members who come from around the country and don't understand the bicultural, bi-national norms of border cities such as Nogales and Douglas have made residents feel as though they live in occupied territories, said Kat Rodriguez, coordinator for Derechos Humanos, an immigrant-rights organization in Tucson.

"You add actually armed troops, and absolutely it's become militarization to an even more intense degree," she said.

Three Nogales residents who live in a neighborhood in the hills east of the city said they've haven't been bothered by the Guard. They offered different opinions about whether they've helped slowed illegal crossings.

Maria de la Luz Luevano, 59, said illegal immigrants continue crossing near her house as always. But neighbors Juan Silva and Sofia Castro Dessavre say they've seen a significant decrease and even though neither ever had problems with illegal immigrants, they feel an added sense of security, they said.

"I don't know where they are crossing, but it's not here," said Silva, 67, who has lived at his house that sits about a half mile from the border east of Nogales 25 years. "We sleep better."

The men and women come from 24 states and territories with a wide range of civilian backgrounds. Their time on the border ranges from two weeks to one year. They all volunteered for the mission.

Senior Airman Joseph Littlejohn, 24, works in construction in Oklahoma City and has Guard training in computer maintenance. He arrived on Aug. 1 and will be here until April. Senior Airman Jeremiah Steele, 19, worked at a Wal-Mart in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., before he arrived three months ago.

They suffered along with Livingston in the heat of July and August, got drenched in the summer's monsoons and have been struggling to keep warm in the cold nights of October. But through it all, the four said they've learned a lot and enjoyed their time in Arizona.

"This is probably the most important mission our military is on right now because it's our country," said Livingston, who arrived on Oct. 1 and plans to head home at the end of the month.

If things continue to go well, the Guard could be on the border for many years, predicts National Guard Lt. Col. Kathleen Hancox. If President Bush signs into the law the bill for 700 miles of fencing, she's confident the Guard could help build it.

"I know from my unit, they are gnashing at the bit to come out here and do something like that," said Hancox, who works out of St. Louis.