Thread: Guardsmen in place at border to aid agents

Guardsmen in place at border to aid agents

Brady McCombs Arizona Daily Star Arizona Daily Star
October 9, 2010 12:00 am

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NOGALES, Ariz. - Four men holding M16 rifles stand in front of a camouflage mesh tent staked into the ground on a hilltop just west of the Mariposa Port of Entry, a few hundred feet north of a steel bollard border fence.

The Arizona National Guard soldiers scan left and right, gazing south into Mexico. One man uses binoculars. Their assignment is simple: Look for people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and tell the Border Patrol.

The National Guard troops that many border residents and border-state politicians have clamored for are finally here, with 560 now in place in Arizona. Most of them - 504 to be exact - will be working in around-the-clock border observation posts like this.

The troops have weapons and will be authorized to use them within the established rules of force, which include self defense. But they won't be allowed to apprehend anybody, the same rules as the during last major National Guard mission; Operation Jump Start from 2006-2008.

"They serve as our eyes and ears," said Victor Manjarrez Jr. chief of the Border Patrol's Tucson Sector. Agents have already made 400 apprehensions as a result of the surveillance from the National Guard posts, he said.

But critics say the troops won't have any impact on the the flow of people and drugs because they aren't allowed to actively seek and apprehend.

"They're military, and instead of letting them do their job, we let them down there with typewriter ribbons and oil cans," said Republican state Sen. Russell Pearce, who wrote Arizona's controversial immigration legislation, SB 1070. "We send them overseas in harm's way but we don't let them defend our own borders in a proper manner?

"They've got political handcuffs on them."

But the Border Patrol says any help it can get helps out in its overall mission.

"Any additional resource we can add in and effectively utilize to mitigate the risk along the southern border is absolutely significant," Manjarrez said.

The mission, being dubbed "Copper Cactus," began on Aug. 1 and is scheduled to end June 30. There was a slow ramp-up from Aug. 1 to Oct. 1 to get the full contingent of 560 in place and there will a slow ramp-down to remove the troops next summer.

The 560 soldiers in Arizona represent nearly half of the 1,200 troops President Obama authorized in May for active duty along the U.S.-Mexico border. The mission is part of the Obama administration's overall border-security plan, which includes funding for more federal agents to slow people and drug smuggling into the U.S. as well as money and gun trafficking into Mexico.

The cost of the border-wide mission involving the Guard is not to exceed $135 million, which will be split evenly between the Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department budgets.

In Arizona, another 24 National Guardsmen will work in administrative roles to support the troops while 28 others are assigned to work as criminal-intelligence analysts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. All of the troops volunteered for the mission and are from the Arizona National Guard.

The Border Patrol declined to say how many observation posts are up along Arizona's border but said there are sites in Cochise, Santa Cruz and Pima counties. There are at least five sites near Nogales that are visible from the city. There are none on the Tohono O'odham Nation, one of the busiest corridors on the entire Southwest border, Manjarrez said.

The troops will have more than just binoculars at their disposal. Border Patrol agents have been trained them to use infrared surveillance devices, stationary truck-mounted cameras and technology with advanced optics.

Most of the spots chosen for the observation posts are usually manned by Border Patrol agents so the National Guard's presence will free up agents to actively pursue illegal border crossers.

"That agents that know the area can go out and do the work they are trained to do," said Border Patrol spokesman David Jimarez.

Brandon Judd, president of the union representing Border Patrol agents in the Tucson Sector, Local 2544, echoed Jimarez.

"The more agents you free up to arrest the (illegal) aliens or drugs that are crossing, the more effective we will be," Judd said.

But Judd cautioned that it will be very difficult to measure the effectiveness of the National Guard because there are so few crossings right now, he said. Apprehensions in the Tucson Sector, which covers the border from New Mexico to Yuma County, have declined each of the past six fiscal years.

While mostly complimentary of the mission, Judd questioned why officials are announcing when the troops will be leaving. He said officials should have kept that under wraps to keep the smugglers from knowing.

Bill McDonald, a fifth-generation Cochise County rancher with property near the border east of Douglas, agreed with Judd.

"I don't think they should tell them when they are going to be here and when they are not," McDonald said. "I think it would be good that the other side believes they are here all the time."

About 200 soldiers will be staying at Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista as a cost-saving measure and the rest will be staying in hotels and other lodging contracted by the government in Tucson, said Col. Jill Nelson of the Arizona National Guard. Those arrangements have not been finalized, she said. Some are still staying at Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, which was used for lodging during training.

National Guard troops will be given days off and encouraged to visit their families, Nelson said. The goal is to avoid burnout among the soldiers, many of whom have recently returned from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, she said.

"It's good for them, good for their family life and still meets the 24-7 coverage," Nelson said.

The Guard also tried to assign the 28 soldiers working as criminal-intelligence analysts to the cities where they live. Those soldiers will be working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Phoenix, Tucson, Yuma, Nogales and Douglas, Nelson said.

Nelson hopes most of the soldiers stay throughout the mission but she said the National Guard expects some attrition and has a list of soldiers ready to step in if needed.

Contact reporter Brady McCombs at 573-4213 or bmccombs@azstarnet.com. The Associated Press contributed to this article.

http://azstarnet.com/news/local/border/ ... cdab5.html

less than 1k, with no order to stop mexicans from doing what they do....pump drugs and anything else they can into the USA. this crap will stop after the political turn around. if not?.........chime in kiddies.

I have no words for such contempt of Americans. We have been invaded by "12 million" illegal aliens,
and Mr. Obama posts 12 hundred National Guard troops with orders to observe, report, and hold their fire?

From October into March, illegal alien traffic is minimal... not to mention, deployment is a month before the elections.

The troops have weapons and will be authorized to use them within the established rules of force, which include self defense. But they won't be allowed to apprehend anybody, the same rules as the during last major National Guard mission; Operation Jump Start from 2006-2008.

They cannot "apprehend anybody." So essentially, an illegal invader could walk right past them and there is nothing they could do other than call the Border Patrol.

That doesn't sound right to me.

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