Thread: Napolitano wants to stop National Guard withdrawal

Published: 08.03.2007

Napolitano wants to stop National Guard withdrawal
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
PHOENIX -- Gov. Janet Napolitano wants federal officials to halt the withdrawal of National Guard troops from along the U.S.-Mexico border.
"The drawdown of Operation Jump Start's strength level is ill-timed and should be halted and reexamined," the governor said in a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff.
The program, started last year, was designed to put 6,000 Guard soldiers along the border -- 2,400 of them in Arizona -- to make up for a shortage of Border Patrol officers. Napolitano said Operation Jump Start "has made real progress" in cutting the number of people sneaking into this country illegally.
The governor said, though, the Border Patrol is still not up to the strength promised. And she wants the withdrawal of soldiers, which started July 1, stopped.
Napolitano's letter, however, comes too late to halt the immediate loss.
National Guard Maj. Paul Aguirre report that of Friday the first half of the withdrawal had been completed. There are now only about 1,200 Guard soldiers along the border in Arizona -- the number that was not supposed to be reached before the end of the month.
And federal officials are giving a cool response to any request to alter the target of having all of the rest of the soldiers gone by next July.
Russ Knocke, spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said it always was made clear to border governors that Operation Jump Start was temporary.
The idea was to have soldiers handling functions ranging from fence building and maintenance to surveillance, freeing up the existing officers to actually apprehend border crossers. It also gave the Border Patrol a chance to hire and train new officers.
He said that plan is working, saying the agency is "on target" for increasing its ranks.
He said 2,300 officers have been added since 2006 bringing total strength nationwide up to more than 14,000. That includes nearly 300 in the Tucson sector which covers the area from the New Mexico border to the Yuma County line, and more than 125 in the Yuma sector which goes west from there through the Imperial sand dunes in California.
Knocke said another 600 will be on board nationwide by the end of September, with 3,000 more a year later.
And he said Customs and Border Protection, the Border Patrol's parent agency, also has added about 650 administrative staffers nationwide since Operation Jump Start began -- people handling some of the jobs National Guard soldiers were doing.
"So you've got a significant investment in terms of more Border Patrol, with more coming," he said. "You've got more fencing with more coming, more vehicular barriers with more coming."
Napolitano is faring no better with the Department of Defense. Lt. Col. Les' Melnyk, an agency press officer, said Gates doesn't intend to alter the plans to end Operation Jump Start next year.
"Any adjustment to this plan would be made by the president," he said.
Gubernatorial press aide Jeanine L'Ecuyer said replacing the withdrawing National Guard troops from around the nation with soldiers from the Arizona National Guard is not an option.
Some Arizona soldiers have been a part of Operation Jump Start since it started last year. But the cost of their deployment is picked up by the federal government rather than state taxpayers.
Costs aside, L'Ecuyer said there just aren't enough available Guard soldiers from Arizona to make up the difference.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/194812

Arizona governor urges halt to Guard border cuts

Aug 3, 2007
PHOENIX -- Gov. Janet Napolitano on Friday urged federal officials to halt the drawdown of the National Guard's deployment along the U.S.-Mexico border.


The troop reductions started July 1 and are scheduled to be completed Sept. 1, cutting the number of troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border from as far away as Maine and North Dakota to 3,000 from 6,000.

Federal officials have said they could reduce the number of National Guard troops because the Border Patrol is adding more agents, but Napolitano said the drawdown should be halted so authorities can fight human smuggling and other illegal activity.

However, Napolitano said in a letter to the secretaries of the Homeland Security and Defense departments that there's been a steady increase in apprehensions of illegal immigrations in the Border Patrol's Tucson sector since April.

"Arizona remains a problematic border in the Southwest region and the long-planned drawdown in personnel and patrol is premature," Napolitano said in the letter, which was dated Wednesday and released by her office on Friday.

But a Homeland Security spokesman said that the troops being withdrawn do mostly basic duties such as administrative support or maintenance work and are being replaced.

More than $40 million has been set aside to hire new civilian personnel that will do their jobs, said Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke.

And officials are aiming to have 18,000 border patrol agents by next year, doubling the number of agents since the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Knocke said.

"I reject the assertion that the gradual phaseout of the National Guard is going to have a corresponding impact on criminal activity at the border," Knocke said. "We have more Border Patrol agents than when we started Operation Jumpstart, more vehicle barriers, more personnel."

President Bush in May 2005 ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico to assist the Border Patrol along the Mexican border in efforts to cut illegal immigration.

Overall, the National Guard deployment, Operation Jump Start, "has made real progress" in monitoring the border for smuggling activities, constructing new roads and barriers and providing other support to the Border Patrol, Napolitano wrote.

However, "the drawdown of Operation Jump Start's strength level is ill-timed and should be halted and re-examined," she said.

Several members of New Mexico's congressional delegation last month asked the Bush administration not to cut the number of National Guard troops stationed along the state's border with Mexico.

Napolitano said July 25 that top federal officials had assured her that National Guard troops will continue to perform surveillance and other duties related to actual enforcement and that the reduction in troop strength is taking place in motor pools and other "back office" support duties.

http://kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=6884545