Thread: Tasks Are Workaday for Guard Troops on Border

http://www.nytimes.com

August 7, 2006
Tasks Are Workaday for Guard Troops on Border
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
NOGALES, Ariz., Aug. 4 — The border may have a reputation for drama, intrigue and danger, but Specialist James Dwiggins of the Wisconsin National Guard has not seen much of that in the reception booth of the Border Patrol station here, where he works answering phones and sliding a clipboard for visitors to sign in.

From a camera room at the station, Specialist Kirsten Schultz of the Wisconsin Guard has seen a lot of people crossing the border. Out in the field, Specialist David Murray of the Virginia National Guard stares out at the loping hills lining the border, waiting and watching.

“I don’t see that we are having an impact,” said Specialist Murray, camped on a rainy afternoon at an observation point covered in camouflage netting with three other soldiers. “But every time the Border Patrol comes up, they tell us movement of people has almost completely stopped through here.”

For the National Guard troops sent here, many of the tasks in the border mission may seem humdrum, but the Border Patrol, eager for any help it can get, has claimed some early success as the operation moves into full swing.

Critics still question whether the Guard troops, who do not make arrests because they are not trained to do so and to avoid domestic and international political squabbles, are making a big difference. But Border Patrol officials say the soldiers, whether in an office or on a hilltop, have freed more than 250 agents for regular patrolling, which, combined with the presence of the Guard, has acted as a deterrent to crossers.

The number of arrests in July, when large numbers of soldiers took up positions, declined 37 percent to 59,613 along the 2,000-mile-long Southwest border compared with July last year, officials said. Guard troops have also participated in several rescues of crossers stranded in the desert, they said.

“Operation Jump Start has been tremendous,” the Border Patrol chief, David Aguilar, told reporters last month. Arrest figures fluctuate greatly because of trends in enforcement, weather — July was unusually hot in many border areas — and political and socioeconomic conditions in Mexico and Central America.

Advocates for migrants said they suspected human trafficking had simply shifted away from the more fortified positions into more remote, rugged terrain. Since October, the beginning of the government’s fiscal year, arrests over all have declined in Arizona, the current focus of enforcement, but increased in California, suggesting trafficking is returning there after years of declines.

The presence of the Guard, moreover, apparently has not deterred drug smugglers, with the Border Patrol reporting an increase in drug seizures — marijuana is up 20 percent to 1,262,860 pounds and cocaine less than 1 percent to 8,816 pounds — so far this year.

President Bush ordered the Guard to the border as a stopgap while the Border Patrol hires and trains 6,000 agents by the end of 2008, bringing the force to 18,000.

The Guard’s duties, which include operating cameras and observation posts, fixing vehicles, and repairing and building fences and roads, have not mollified critics who call the mission window dressing to appease conservative lawmakers demanding more action to stanch the flow of illegal immigrants.

Mr. Bush had set a goal of up to 6,000 troops on the border by Aug. 1. The National Guard said that 6,600 were in the four border states but that only about 3,000 were “forward deployed” near the international boundary, with the rest working as administrative staff or undergoing training. Guard officials said that though Mr. Bush said the troops “will be deployed to our southern border,” they never planned to have that many right on the line.

“In normal operational planning, part of the operation is always going to be logistics,” said Lt. Col. Michael Mallord, a spokesman for the Guard in Washington.

Thirty of the 54 states and territories with National Guard troops have contributed troops, while several others will not because they are needed for possible home emergencies like wildfires, flooding and hurricanes. In June, California rejected a Guard request for additional soldiers.

“I think it is fair to say it has taken some work to find 6,000 people,” said Christine Wormuth, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington who studies the Guard. Maintaining anything near that level “is going to be a challenge from a management standpoint,” she said, though Colonel Mallord said they would “easily” maintain strength at the border.

“There is no question in my mind they are providing added value,” Ms. Wormuth added, “but in the grand scheme of border security it is not clear this deployment is going to dramatically enhance the nation’s border security.”

Nevertheless, the men and women here, from Arizona, Kentucky, Nevada, Virginia, Wisconsin and other states, say participating in the mission, in most cases part of their regular two- to three-week annual training obligation, may lack a certain drama but has brought them a first-hand connection to the headlines.

The majority asked for border duty, and some may stay for several months; unlike normal deployments, the soldiers, at least for now, are largely camped in motels and hotels, ranging from the highly rated Loews Ventana Canyon resort near Tucson to the more modest Americana hotel in this city’s gritty downtown.

“You hear about it in the news and then you see it here,” said Sgt. Howard Renfro of the Virginia Guard, who on a recent night spotted a small group of people crossing through a low point in the fence and reported them to the Border Patrol. “It takes you off guard for a second.”

The Guard deployment has shed light on a shortage of civilian staff that has left agents repairing their own vehicles and taking up welding torches to repair border fences.

In a garage at the Border Patrol station here, a team of Nevada Guard mechanics strives to repair agency trucks and cars, battered mercilessly over the jolting terrain, while a group of Guard engineers from Kentucky drives dump trucks and bulldozers, helping build a road along the border fence here.

“This is real good training for us,” said Specialist Robert Owens of Olive Hill, Ky., who had imagined the border fence as a chain-link job but stood stunned to see it as a towering wall of steel plates salvaged from aircraft carriers. Smugglers regularly try to weld and drill through it, necessitating regular repairs, said Sean King, a spokesman for the Border Patrol here.

Staff Sgt. Aric Garza of the Nevada Guard, accustomed to repairing Humvees, now works on sport utility vehicles, vans, all-terrain vehicles and other pieces of the Border Patrol fleet that have seen better days.

“They are really hurting on vehicle maintenance,” he said, describing himself as “happy and motivated” to play even a behind-the-scenes part in the border mission.

Likewise, Specialist Dwiggins of Neenah, Wis., the de facto greeter at the Nogales station, smiled when asked if his tasks were what he had in mind in coming to the border. “Right now it has been this, but I am sure I will see more,” he said. “Anything they need us to do, we’ll do.”

Good Job Troops

In a garage at the Border Patrol station here, a team of Nevada Guard mechanics strives to repair agency trucks and cars, battered mercilessly over the jolting terrain, while a group of Guard engineers from Kentucky drives dump trucks and bulldozers, helping build a road along the border fence here.

“This is real good training for us,” said Specialist Robert Owens of Olive Hill, Ky., who had imagined the border fence as a chain-link job but stood stunned to see it as a towering wall of steel plates salvaged from aircraft carriers. Smugglers regularly try to weld and drill through it, necessitating regular repairs, said Sean King, a spokesman for the Border Patrol here.

Staff Sgt. Aric Garza of the Nevada Guard, accustomed to repairing Humvees, now works on sport utility vehicles, vans, all-terrain vehicles and other pieces of the Border Patrol fleet that have seen better days.

“They are really hurting on vehicle maintenance,” he said, describing himself as “happy and motivated” to play even a behind-the-scenes part in the border mission.

Likewise, Specialist Dwiggins of Neenah, Wis., the de facto greeter at the Nogales station, smiled when asked if his tasks were what he had in mind in coming to the border. “Right now it has been this, but I am sure I will see more,” he said. “Anything they need us to do, we’ll do.”