Thread: Napolitano steadfast against Perry's TX plea for more troops

Napolitano steadfast against Perry's plea for more troops

12:00 AM CDT on Saturday, September 18, 2010
By TODD J. GILLMAN / The Dallas Morning News
tgillman@dallasnews.com

WASHINGTON – The nation's homeland security chief left little doubt Friday that Texas Gov. Rick Perry – rebuffed repeatedly in his demands for more National Guard along the border – can forget about getting more troops.

The federal government has already invested $600 million to tighten security, Secretary Janet Napolitano said, noting that illegal immigration and smuggling are down, while violence from Mexico's drug war remains contained across the border.

"He is a governor. He always has the ability, in a way, to bring up National Guard, if he's willing to pay for them," she said. "That's always an option available to a governor."

Perry has long accused the federal government of failing to put sufficient resources along the border. A month after President Barack Obama took office, the governor sought 1,000 National Guard troops.

This summer, the administration added 1,200 troops for the entire Southwest border, including 286 for Texas' 1,200-mile stretch.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger called that "grossly insufficient," especially given that Texas has nearly two-thirds of the Southwest border.

"This is not just a border security issue, it is a homeland security issue, both of which are federal responsibilities," she said Friday. Cesinger added that as a former Arizona governor, Napolitano "knows how greatly unjust it is for this administration to pass the cost and burden of keeping the entire nation safe on to the taxpayers of Texas."

Cesinger – effectively accusing Napolitano of hypocrisy – provided several letters she wrote the Bush administration as a governor. In December 2005, for instance, Napolitano told then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the 174 National Guard troops then stationed along the border in her state were insufficient.

"By no means should state resources be used to supplant this federal responsibility," Napolitano wrote.

Cesinger said Perry will continue to demand more resources, because "the border is not secure."

Napolitano maintained that the government had properly assessed border needs.

"They are going where the folks that have looked at the border across from California to Texas ascertained they are most needed. And if that need changes, they will be moved," Napolitano said. "In the meantime there has been a huge and continuous plus-up" amounting to $600 million for additional border agents and technology. "That's really where the federal presence needs to be built."

Perry's rival in the November election, Democrat Bill White, has accused him of playing politics with the issue; White vows to hire 1,250 more state and local law enforcement officers to deploy along the border, rather than, as he puts it, waiting for Washington to step in.

When asked if Perry is posturing, or if there is room for legitimate differences of opinion on the appropriate level of military involvement, Napolitano – joining two dozen reporters at a lunch organized by the Christian Science Monitor – rolled her eyes, then quickly blamed the gooey chocolate cake she'd just sampled.

"Do not interpret anything other than: This is really good cake," she said, eliciting laughter around the table at a hotel near the White House.

"The last thing I want is a headline saying: 'Rick Perry, call up your National Guard.' What I am saying is, 'Look, the National Guard is not designed to be a substitute for civilian law enforcement,' " she said.

Ahead of Obama's visit to Austin last month, the governor requested sufficient time to make his case for more border resources. He tried again two weeks ago when Obama visited Fort Bliss in El Paso, without stopping to tour the border as Perry and other Obama critics hoped.

The administration offered a meeting with Napolitano and John Brennan, the White House point man on homeland security. Perry passed, with aides saying he needed more resources, not more briefings.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent ... 5c236.html

Feds again tell Perry no more guardsmen

Homeland Security chief says governor can call up more units to border anytime — at Texas' expense

By STEWART M. POWELL
HOUSTON CHRONICLE
Sept. 18, 2010, 7:09AM

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano again rebuffed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's call for more U.S.-paid National Guard troops along the Texas-Mexico border, insisting Friday that current deployments are enough and the governor can call up troops anytime — at his own expense.

Napolitano's comment was the latest riposte in politically charged exchanges between Texas' Republican governor and President Barack Obama's administration dating back to Perry's call for 1,000 federally paid National Guard troops 20 months ago.

Perry's office has said spillover drug cartel violence along the border is a persistent threat to Texans and Obama's administration should pay for protection.

Obama ordered 250 National Guard troops to the Texas border at federal expense in August as part of an emergency call-up of 1,200 troops along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said the stepped-up border security measures have been "grossly insufficient," particularly since border security and homeland security remain federal responsibilities.

"As a former border governor, Secretary Napolitano knows how greatly unjust it is for this administration to pass the cost and burden of keeping the entire nation safe on to the taxpayers of Texas," she said.

Resisting call for troops
Gangland battles continue unabated in Ciudad Juarez across from El Paso, but they also have escalated dramatically in the states of Tamaulipas and Nuevo Leon along Texas' southeast border.

The administration has resisted calls for additional troops, citing a $600 million buildup of federal law enforcement personnel and technology already committed in response to Mexican drug wars along the border.

"We have been putting resources into the border at an unprecedented rate," Napolitano said Friday.

The Obama administration is "paying particular attention" to border communities concerned about spillover violence, she emphasized.

But neither the U.S. Border Patrol and Customs and Border Protection nor local county sheriffs are seeing signs of violence threatening U.S. border communities, as some Republican politicians claim, Napolitano said.

Insufficient resources
National Guard troops are being deployed where they are needed and "if that need changes, they will be moved," Napolitano said.

Perry, she said, can call up the National Guard in Texas if he wants to pay for it: "That's always an option available to a governor," she said.

Perry has criticized the administration for giving Texas only 20 percent of the federally paid National Guard troops along the southwest border when the state's border accounts for 64 percent of the 1,969-mile border.

"I don't need a Washington briefing to tell me that the car bombs going off across the Rio Grande, the cartels recruiting teenage Texans as hit men and bullets from shootouts hitting UT-Brownsville and El Paso's City Hall are signs that things are going from bad to worse," Perry told the National Guard Association Convention last month. "America needs swift action and sufficient resources to protect our border communities and the families who call them home."

Perry, as commander in chief of the Texas National Guard, activated 48 troops, two Blackhawk helicopters and 10 high-clearance military vehicles at state expense in early September to support search-and-rescue efforts after flooding from the remnants of Tropical Storm Hermine.

stewart.powell@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/met ... 06714.html

When asked if Perry is posturing, or if there is room for legitimate differences of opinion on the appropriate level of military involvement, Napolitano – joining two dozen reporters at a lunch organized by the Christian Science Monitor – rolled her eyes, then quickly blamed the gooey chocolate cake she'd just sampled.

"Do not interpret anything other than: This is really good cake," she said, eliciting laughter around the table at a hotel near the White House.

Pretentious petty bureaucrat full of botox. JMO

There are more National Guard troops in the middle east than protecting the NATION!

let me see if i understand-if a state asks for assistance then that state must pay-but if a state passes a law to enforce existing law, then that state will be sued by the federal govt?

Originally Posted by AngryTX

let me see if i understand-if a state asks for assistance then that state must pay-but if a state passes a law to enforce existing law, then that state will be sued by the federal govt?

that sure does look like the size of things

Related

Janet Napolitano: 'This is a civilian border'
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-212677.html

Napolitano touts fed border response Govs can deploy more
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-212677.html

WASHINGTON — Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano again rebuffed Texas Gov. Rick Perry's call for more U.S.-paid National Guard troops along the Texas-Mexico border, insisting Friday that current deployments are enough and the governor can call up troops anytime — at his own expense.

So the feds say neither Sheriff Joe nor Arizona City Police can enforce the immigration laws, but the Arizona National Guard can? Obama won't mind if the National Guard is performing illegal alien sweeps and arresting illegal drunk drivers in Arizona cities?

Figures! Obama and his Democrats are making Texas pay for being a RED state.

Originally Posted by bigtex

Figures! Obama and his Democrats are making Texas pay for being a RED state.

but they are doing this to every border state. Perry is being called out because he has made noise lately with Brewer about the national guard.
Richardson and Schwarzennagar havent said much of anything