Thread: Just what will the National Guard guard?

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More columns by Ruben Navarrette Jr.
Just what will the National Guard guard?

UNION-TRIBUNE
May 17, 2006

Just what President Bush needed: another controversy involving the National Guard.

I've heard plenty of bad ideas – and few good ones – about how to secure the U.S.-Mexican border and what to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who have already breached it.

One of the worst ideas is to deploy the National Guard at the border. And one of the poorer ways to deal with illegal immigrants is anything resembling amnesty.

As Bush made clear Monday in his address to the nation, he wants to do both. He plans to send 6,000 National Guard troops to the border to lend a hand to the more than 11,000 Border Patrol agents already there. He also wants a “rational middle ground” that would allow perhaps millions of illegal immigrants who have established roots in the United States to apply for citizenship.

Indeed, the fact that Bush wants to do the first is a clue that he's serious about pushing for the second.

Apparently, the White House puts stock in those polls showing that most Americans would support legalizing the undocumented if we also control our borders.

The language about citizenship is new. Up to now, what we've heard from the administration was limited to allowing illegal immigrants to remain in the country in three-year increments with the unrealistic expectation that some would leave voluntarily. Now Bush wants to offer at least some of them a chance to stay permanently.

For my part, I've warmed up a little to the idea of legalizing some of the undocumented – as long as they pay a fine, learn English and otherwise take responsibility for changing their immigration status. But my view of sending in the troops hasn't changed over the 15 years that I've covered this issue. As a solution to our self-induced immigration woes, I give it a “D” – for dumb, drastic and dangerous.

It's dumb because, though this may come as a shock to the television personalities who parachuted into the San Diego area this week for live shots in front of barbed wire fences, the front line in the immigration battle isn't the U.S.-Mexico border. It's the parking lot of the mega-hardware store in Indianapolis where people pick up day laborers. It's in the restaurant in Las Vegas, and the hotel in Denver, and the construction site in Atlanta. And it is in American households where easy access to cheap labor lets middle-class families have nannies and housekeepers, and other luxuries that were once the sole province of the upper class.

It's drastic because, as a practical matter, the National Guard is already spread too thin thanks to the war in Iraq and natural disasters at home. It also makes Bush look desperate, as if he's caving in to reactionary bullies on the far right who want – as New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson put it – a “repressive” immigration policy. It was just a few years ago that Bush, during an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, pooh-poohed the idea of putting the Guard on the border. Now Bush has flip-flopped.

Finally, it's dangerous because the roles served by soldiers and cops aren't interchangeable. Ask any law enforcement officer who served in the military. Whereas the Border Patrol can – through techniques such as vehicle stops in border communities – tactically remove illegal immigrants, the National Guard is a blunt instrument. And when that instrument is used indiscriminately, people can get hurt.

Bush assures us that won't happen, and that the Guard will “not be involved in direct law enforcement activities.” Under the administration's plan, the National Guard would have very little contact with illegal immigrants; it couldn't detain or apprehend anyone or directly guard the border. The idea is for the Guard to conduct surveillance and build roads, fences and barriers.

This is not exactly what the right-wing restrictionists had in mind. They wanted a military force to seal the border. And so they wasted no time in blasting and mocking the president's idea. They probably also weren't pleased that Bush, in his speech, noted that “the vast majority of illegal immigrants are decent people who work hard, support their families, practice their faith and lead responsible lives” or that “every human being has dignity and value no matter what their citizenship papers say.”

Given the opposition the plan is likely to generate on both sides of the debate, it's hard to see the political benefit of this exercise. But what do you expect when, in trying to please both extremes, you come up with something as comical as a National Guard with orders not to do any guarding?

Navarrette can be reached via e-mail at ruben.navarrette@uniontrib.com.

Count 1.2.3. now get your butt back across the border...That's what the National Guard should be sent to do.....Anyone else think this way ?