http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/n ... 150887.htm

Posted on Sat, Jul. 29, 2006

Another front in war on terror
For Powell, Guard's border mission similar to one in Middle East

BARBARA BARRETT
(Raleigh) News & Observer

SAN LUIS, Ariz. - As commander of the N.C. Army National Guard's work on the border in Arizona, Lt. Col. Randy Powell is getting the chance to see the beginning of the journey immigrants take into his police district in Charlotte.

"Like everywhere else, you're seeing more and more interaction with illegal immigrants," said Powell, a 38-year-old sergeant in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.

The 200 troops from the 252nd Combine Arms Battalion out of Fayetteville began patrolling the border late Wednesday in an attempt to stem the human tide pouring into the country from Mexico. They're among the first of what will become 6,000 Guard troops in Operation Jump Start, announced by President Bush in May.

North Carolina has one of the fastest-growing illegal immigrant populations in the country, and Powell sees the troops' mission of protecting the border as another front in the war on terrorism.

The border crossing here looks like the one in Khanaquin, Iraq, where his troops guarded the Iran-Iraq border and hunted insurgents: long stretches of desert, then a sudden spit of commerce.

"It's definitely not a humanitarian mission," Powell said of the Arizona job. "We're not here to save people who could be terrorists coming into our country."

His job is to ensure his troops are taken care of, that they're being used, that he can communicate their needs.

He's also trying to figure out how to make Operation Jump Start go more smoothly. During a tour of the border this week with a Border Patrol official and a visiting brigadier general from North Carolina, Powell was diplomatic in offering suggestions.

Maybe, he said, Border Patrol could send a couple of officials to the states that send Guard troops, rather than having troops spend two nights in hotels while getting briefed and trained and awaiting decisions on where to put them to work. His battalion had arrived Sunday in Arizona and spent a couple of nights in Tucson hotels before driving west to Yuma.

This work, he said, might give him an understanding of the immigrants arriving back in Charlotte: "I'm seeing where illegal immigration begins. And some of the plight they go through to be here."

He saw a Border Patrol video during training that showed a picture of a father holding his young son, both dead from heat and dehydration.

"It's a dilemma," he said. "You feel as a father and a husband. We all love our kids. But you wonder, did he know the risks by taking a 5-year-old out there?"

Some children do make it; teenage girls and a lone boy were among those waiting in the Yuma sector detention center's holding rooms this week.

Powell wonders how the Guard's presence will affect those trying to cross the border illegally. Will they stop coming? Move somewhere else?

"I know what it means to put 10 cops on a street corner and see crime go down," he said. "I'm curious to see what happens."


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Barbara Barrett: (202) 383-0012; bbarrett@mcclatchydc.com