Thread: El Paso to get $400,000 to help with border security

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_5081128

El Paso to get $400,000 to help with border security
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
El Paso Times
Article Launched:01/25/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

AUSTIN -- About 10 percent of the money for Gov. Rick Perry's latest border security operation will come to El Paso, and some of the soldiers who will take part in the mission will come from the Sun City, officials say.
Monday, Perry announced the launch of Operation Wrangler, a continuation of state-led border security initiatives that began in 2005. Wrangler will involve 6,800 federal, state and local personnel, including 604 Texas National Guard soldiers, and other ground, air and water resources.

Perry spokesman Ted Royer said preliminary estimates put the cost of Operation Wrangler at $4 million. U.S. Homeland Security Department grants, given to local departments through Perry's office, will cover the expenses.

"All of this costs money, but our security is worth a whole lot more," Perry said Wednesday in McAllen.

Perry has already spent more than $20 million on border security initiatives since 2005.

Like past efforts, the newest mission will involve law enforcement surges in spots known for border-related crime. Perry said past surges reduced crime in rural border counties.

El Paso Police Chief Richard Wiles said his department would get more than $400,000 to put 30 officers on extra patrols around the clock for a week during the first surge.

More money could come for future surges during the six-month operation, he said.

"We think it will have a significant impact on helping us to control crime in the city," Wiles said.

Deputy Police Chief Tom Whitten said another surge in police presence is expected in about three months.

Lt. Gomecindo Lopez in the El Paso County Sheriff's Office said figures on the cost for that department would not be available until Wrangler is over.

Both Lopez and Wiles said their operations would focus on increased patrols along highways and other main thoroughfares in and around El Paso.

Unlike past border security operations, Wrangler will match up 12 armed Texas National Guard security platoons with local police and U.S. Border Patrol agents in hot spots along the border.

Platoons assigned to Wrangler will be in addition to the 1,700 soldiers sent to Texas-Mexico border to assist Border Patrol last year.

Texas National Guard spokes man Col. Bill Meehan said some of the soldiers assigned to the new mission would come from El Paso's 204th Security Forces Squadron.

Officials said neither local police nor local sheriff's deputies have plans to accompany Texas National Guard soldiers.

American Civil Liberties Union of Texas spokeswoman Rebecca Bernhardt said having military forces involved in the latest mission was disconcerting because the soldiers do not have law enforcement training.

"This creates an unacceptable risk that unarmed people are going to get shot," she said.

Meehan said National Guard soldiers have been working on the border with local law enforcement and Border Patrol for nearly two decades "essentially incident free."

He added that soldiers make up just 10 percent of the personnel involved in Operation Wrangler and that most of them are from the Texas border.

"Who better to work with civilian enforcement than guardsmen from the civilian community?" he said.

Also different from past operations, Wrangler is not limited to the border. The surges, Perry said, will happen statewide. Up to 200 local police and sheriff's departments could receive money for and participate in the operation.

Perry spokesman Robert Black refused to release a list of participating law enforcement agencies, citing a desire to keep criminals from finding out where to expect additional uniforms.

But newspaper reports in cities as far from the border as Texarkana, on the Texas-Arkansas border, and Amarillo in the northern end of the Texas Panhandle indicate that law enforcement agencies in those areas plan to participate in the operation.

Without more information about the participating departments and the specific goals of Operation Wrangler, the ACLU's Bernhardt said, the mission seems ill-defined.

"This is a border security effort that's targeted all over state of Texas on highways and other roads, so it looks like a vaguely defined statewide highway dragnet," she said.

Perry, touting the new operation Wednesday in McAllen, said the mission is to make it tough on criminals everywhere.

"There can be no safe haven for drug traffickers and human smugglers anywhere in Texas," Perry said.


Brandi Grissom may be reached at bgrissom@elpasotimes.com; (512) 479-6606.



'We think it will have a significant impact on helping us control crime in the city.'

Richard Wiles,

El Paso police chief

Is El Paso still a sanctuary city?