Thread: Governor Schwarzenegger needs real knowledge of border

http://www.dailybulletin.com/opinions/ci_3922619

Article Launched: 6/11/2006 12:00 AM

GUEST COLUMN
Governor needs real knowledge of border

Andy Ramirez, Guest columnist
Inland Valley Daily Bulletin

It has been reported that Gov. Schwarzenegger is going to deploy 1,000 National Guard troopers to the California border with Mexico.
While this is a step in the right direction, it is a small step. The governor has stated that the Guard will be deployed via rotations under order until Dec. 31, 2008.

This shows that Gov. Schwarzenegger has not met with people who understand the border and continues to rely on his staff, which knows about as much about the border as a pig knows about Sundays.

Has the governor of California personally met with the chief patrol agents of San Diego and El Centro Border Patrol sectors, or merely relied on his staff members to do this for him? Has the governor personally met with the Southwest Border Sheriffs Coalition?

I have met with the border sheriffs and chiefs/deputy chiefs of law enforcement agencies, including the Border Patrol, along the Southwestern border and conducted my own personal investigations that have since been reported to congressional leaders in Washington.

Gov. Schwarzenegger is uninformed and does not know what’s going on, as his timetable demonstrates. That’s due to the insulation by his own staff and the complete lack of truth from the Department of Homeland Security in Washington through David Aguilar, chief of the Border Patrol. Anyone who believes that we will have several thousand new Border Patrol agents on the border by 2009 is clueless about the facts.

You don’t hire personnel and put boots on the border in mere days. First, you need to recruit. The ratio of recruits to "cadets” is 30:1 (source: U.S. Border Patrol). Then you have the security clearances and interviews, a lengthy process. The time at the Border Patrol Academy in New Mexico is 19 weeks, including academics and physical training with major exams that are pass or fail.

This doesn’t even include the post-academy exam at 10 months. Failure of those exams means you are out.

And the academy is not built to handle several thousand Border Patrol trainees.

Consider the near-stupidity that was initially discussed of guardsmen not being armed. Whoever thought of that nonsense hasn’t been to the border, and certainly hasn’t spoken with Sheriffs West and Flores of Texas, Border Patrol line agents or local guardsmen, or spoken with me. We’d all have reported to the governor that the border is a dangerous place. In fact, it’s a war zone.

The only reason I ever suggested that civilian observers be unarmed was to protect us from liabilities. I knew it was too dangerous to be unarmed without constant coordination with law enforcement.

Think about it. The only armed individuals besides local citizens residing along the border would be narcotic and human traffickers, the Mexican military during incursions, and other dangerous criminals including violent gangs. Yet, we were not going to arm the Guard troopers out on the border?

The national media have not reported stories on the increasing number of assaults or shooting incidents against law enforcement from across the Mexican border. I’ve been there and seen it myself. This number has increased over the past two to three years. Outside of Lou Dobbs and Fox News Channel, the media focus on "rallies” against laws, bills, and efforts to see immigration law enforced.

Let me explain the infamous "X’s.” We place Border Patrol agents on a spot, or "X,” and there they sit; illegal aliens will not cross at that point by the mere presence of the Border Patrol agent.

Since we can now put the Guard on "X” or deterrence fence duty, we could pull Border Patrol agents from those same "X’s.” This action makes it simple to move the chess pieces and resume interior enforcement operations or sweeps. Since ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency) is a pointless waste of congressional funding and should be disbanded, we let the Border Patrol resume sweeps and clean up those job magnets and our cities. In a matter of time, we clean up our illegal immigration problem.

Anyone who thinks this is simply a training mission does not understand the role of the Guard. They are not just for disaster aid and assisting with relief but in time of war are additional manpower from what is considered a "volunteer army” that ensures our states are protected in the way the old militias protected our nation back when it was being formed. The Guard is well led, organized, trained and armed.

As many reserves and guardsmen have reported to me over the past 13 months, they see their duty as the same regardless if they are deployed overseas to Iraq or within the United States due to a simple fact: according to Commander in-Chief George W. Bush, we are engaged in a war on terror. This is no training exercise, but a deployment as part of that war.

Gov. Schwarzenegger needs to meet with the border sheriffs and the Border Patrol’s sector chiefs. He also needs to sit down with real people like me, who have presented reliable information to Congress about the War on the Border, and then he’ll be able to make the best decision, which will benefit the people of California.

I have repeatedly attempted to contact the governor and never been granted even five minutes, though many GOP state legislators have accepted meetings and briefings and all have said they learned more on the issue in that 30 minutes than they did in all the news reports they read prior.

Arnold needs to go see this for himself, and not depend on his incompetent staff, which keeps him insulated from reality.

Let’s face it. If I compare Arnold’s silver-screen characters to his real-life role as governor, it’s obvious that his screen persona has more guts than the insulated one that is responsible for more than 35 million Californians.

Give me the choice, and I’ll take that firefighter from "Collateral Damage” because that character didn’t accept scripted stories from bureaucrats but instead went into the trenches and got down and dirty and took care of it personally.

Don’t know that movie? Well, I’ll simplify it. Just give me Conan the Barbarian. That’s the Arnold Schwarzenegger we have waited to see since he was elected governor of California, instead of the person whose handlers have only succeeded in making him look like a completely insulated, uninformed, red-carpet-tour schmuck since his election in 2003.


– Andy Ramirez is chairman of Friends of the Border Patrol. He lives in Chino.

Schwarzenegger will never get it! He's in bed with a Kennedy. Maria Shriver is a Kennedy!!!!!!!! Schwarzenegger's mother-in-law is Eunice Kennedy, which is Ted Kennedy's sister!!! Schwarzenegger is a member of the Kennedy dynasty!!!

Now, can you now call him Arnold Kennedy?

Dixie

This shows that Gov. Schwarzenegger has not met with people who understand the border and continues to rely on his staff, which knows about as much about the border as a pig knows about Sundays.

Love that quote

This is one of the main complaints Gov. Schwarzenegger made about Bush! Albeit he used the term 'half baked'. I strongly advise Gov.Schwarzenegger to pay attention to his constituents or he'll be on the menu come a certain Sunday in November. Schweinehaxen anyone?