http://www.startribune.com/462/story/963496.html

Last update: January 27, 2007 – 10:00 PM

Minnesota's guard: Eyes on the border
They're among thousands of soldiers from around the country on a new mission to stop illegal immigrants from Mexico.

By Jean Hopfensperger, Star Tribune


SANTA TERESA, N.M. -- As dusk fell over the desert, silhouetting distant mountains in red, Specialist Thomas Bolinger pointed binoculars toward the border and watched for anything suspicious.
Soon the Minnesota National Guardsman saw something: car headlights nearing a Mexican ranch a mile away. Then the headlights clicked off. More illegal migrants about to sneak into the United States? Bolinger grabbed his hand-held radio and alerted the U.S. Border Patrol.

It's a routine task in his unusual new mission.

Across the nation's 1,300-mile border with Mexico, in a no-man's land of cactus and tumbleweed, thousands of National Guard soldiers are now playing a front-line role in the divisive fight over illegal immigration. Bolinger is among the first wave of Minnesota Guard members trying to stop the more than 1 million migrants who attempt or make illegal crossings each year -- a tide that's flowing up to Minnesota and bringing both benefits and burdens.

"You can see how they just want to make a better life for themselves," Sgt. Ryan Clark, of Byron, Minn., said from his outpost in Deming, N.M. "But there's a [legal] way to do that."

The National Guard's assignment, dubbed "Operation Jump Start," is part of a broad crackdown along the southwestern border that President Bush initiated last year.

Another controversial step in that plan began last week: construction of a massive fence and other border barriers. Meanwhile, in his State of the Union address last week, Bush also revived his push for a guest-worker program and said that immigration reform is one of his priorities this year.

Federal officials say the National Guard's deployment, which began months ago for some state units, reduced border arrests in the last three months of 2006 by 26 percent from California to Texas -- to about 153,000.

"It's gone extremely well," said Craig Duehring, a Mankato native who is the Pentagon's principal deputy assistant secretary overseeing reserve affairs. "In each border patrol region, the number of arrests has gone down."

But some immigration experts say the military build-up is forcing illegal immigrants either to find more remote crossing points or to rely more on smuggling networks that abuse and exploit them. Others say it does nothing to address the root causes of illegal immigration.

"When you resort to putting the military on the border, you're admitting to the failure of the system you've set up," said Kathleen Walker, an immigration attorney from El Paso and president-elect of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

Long, watchful days and nights

About 80 Minnesota Guard soldiers took up positions on the border here in New Mexico three weeks ago. Another 120 were deployed this weekend.

Minnesota is one of 47 states and territories answering the president's call. Last summer, Gov. Tim Pawlenty said he would deploy the state's Guard to the border because illegal immigration was "nearly out of control" and the level of border enforcement was "embarrassing."

National Guard troops from other states are erecting fences, repairing Border Patrol vehicles and building border barriers against cars. Minnesota troops are strictly doing surveillance.

They spend long days and nights perched in mobile watchtowers high above the desert or stand next to their Humvees armed with binoculars and radios.

The soldiers are from the Albert Lea-based D Company, 2nd Battalion, 135th infantry. Many of them have served in Afghanistan, Kosovo or Iraq. Border duty, they say, is an unusual change of pace.

"It's a heck of a lot easier here," said company commander Capt. Eric DiNatale, 35, of Lake City.

Last week, DiNatale's soldiers were divided between Santa Teresa, an area about 15 miles west of El Paso, and Deming, about 70 miles northwest. Wearing camouflage fatigues, the Guard members in Santa Teresa could be spotted along Hwy. 9, which runs parallel to the Mexican border. Their olive green tents and turquoise portable toilets offered a hint of color in the otherwise drab desert.

Across the vast desert, it's nearly impossible to distinguish where Mexico ends and the United States begins. No fence. No Rio Grande. Just endless miles of rocky, rolling terrain of sand and shrubs.

The Guard members around Deming were further inland, watching for illegal immigrants who had already slipped into New Mexico and were on their way north. Relaxing at their new base, most of the Guard members said they had yet to spot anyone illegally crossing the border.

But Sgt. Clark said he had witnessed a crossing a day earlier. He was checking on soldiers at their surveillance posts, wind-swept from unexpected cold hitting the region, when they noticed a figure on a hilltop about 50 meters away.

It was an elderly man wearing a backpack and worn-out jacket and boots, Clark said.

Realizing he had been spotted, the man walked toward the soldiers to turn himself in. He stopped, took off his hat and fanned his face, Clark said.

The Minnesota Guard notified nearby Border Patrol agents, whose white and green vehicles whizzed to the scene. Within a half hour, Clark said, 10 people were arrested.

In that instance and all others, the Guard's rules of engagement were simple -- identify suspicious activity and report it to the Border Patrol. Guard members' weapons can only be used for self-defense.

What Clark witnessed was a typical border crossing, but others are more elaborate, said Doug Mosier, a spokesman for the U.S. Customs & Border Protection Agency.

Illegal immigrants have strapped wood to the bottom of their shoes, with animal hoofs attached to the bottom of the wood, to prevent Border Patrol agents from spotting their tracks. Some migrants also sweep up their tracks in the sand with a branch after each step. And some walk backwards toward the border, Mosier said.

Others have come through legitimate border crossings disguised as priests, military officers and even clowns. One group dressed in Lycra and tried to pass themselves off as a bicycle team, he said.

"You have to respect the ingenuity," Mosier said.

The Border Patrol has its own tricks. It places portable sensors, triggered by movement or contact, in areas with frequent illegal crossings. It uses cameras, infrared spotlights and helicopters. Border Patrol vehicles also continually drag tires over the sandy trails that criss-cross the desert so fresh footprints can easily be seen.

Permanent barriers

The National Guard's new presence on the border is making a big difference, said Larry Jones, the Border Patrol liaison with Operation Jump Start in the El Paso/New Mexico area.

In New Mexico and western Texas, border arrests dropped 38 percent in the last months of 2006, as compared to the previous year, Jones said. Soldiers also have built more than three miles of permanent vehicle barriers on the border just west of Columbus, N.M., he said.

Across the border from there, the town of Palomas, Mexico, now has many empty hotel rooms and restaurants because far fewer illegal immigrants are passing through, said Eduardo Correo, owner of the San Carlos Hotel there.

"People don't know much about the National Guard," said Correo, whose business is down about 60 percent. "They just think of them as the military. And that makes people scared."

Immigrant advocacy groups along the border say the presence of soldiers disturbs them because it implies that illegal immigrants are a dangerous enemy. The U.S. border is not a battlefield, they say, and the people crossing are overwhelmingly just ordinary people seeking a better life.

For more than 30 years, Ruben Garcia has run a shelter for illegal immigrants in El Paso. The newly tightened border security, he said, is merely rerouting border-crossers or causing them to wait to "see how this plays out."

Among those watching and waiting is Victor Hernandez, 40, who was in Juárez, Mexico, one recent day selling newspapers next to the wide bridge that connects his city to Texas. Downtown El Paso is so close he can read the signs on the stores and see what sidewalk mannequins are wearing.

Like many Mexicans, Hernandez has slipped into Texas for years, worked in agriculture or as a day laborer, and saved some money before heading back home to his family in Mexico. He has seen the new fences, the helicopters and the troops. He said he thinks the solution is for people like him to be able to cross legally and work -- not sending more soldiers.

"It's getting harder to cross," Hernandez said. "But people will keep trying anyway."