Thread: Troops to the border / Obama decision more politics

Troops to the border / Obama decision more politics than proper policy

By Union-Tribune Editorial Board,
Thursday, May 27, 2010 at 12:04 a.m.

In a gesture that is as much about politics as it is protecting the American people, President Barack Obama is planning the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to San Diego County and elsewhere along the Southwest border. It’s not the 6,000 troops that Republican Sen. John McCain and other GOP lawmakers asked for, so some on the right were quick to dismiss the gesture. Some on the left were just as outraged that a president who promised and promised comprehensive immigration reform would instead so far only reach for the low-hanging fruit of beefing up enforcement.

But no matter what camp you fall into, here’s what you have to understand about Obama’s decision to call out the guard: the arrival of those troops still won’t secure the border. You know why? Because a 2,000-mile border can’t be completely secured as long as desperate people who will risk their lives to feed their families are willing to go under, over or around any impediment. That fact is never addressed, but until we accept it, opportunists will forever be blaming Washington for not doing the impossible.

Now, as long as the troops are on their way, it’s critical that the administration define its mission as narrowly as possible. We hope that Obama will follow the blueprint drawn up by the Bush administration in 2006 when, in Operation Jumpstart, National Guard troops were deployed to act as backup to the Border Patrol. The troops fixed fencing, repaired vehicles, monitored surveillance equipment and thus freed up Border Patrol agents to go out into the field. But the National Guard did not have direct contact with migrants, leaving that task to the professionals.

Meanwhile, state officials in Arizona are trying to make the case that Washington is asleep at the switch when it comes to border enforcement.

Nonsense. In recent years, the federal government has done everything but station snipers on the border. In fact, the Obama administration deported more illegal immigrants last year than did the Bush Administration in its final year in office. And now Obama is sending in the National Guard. This at a time when illegal immigration is reported to be at the lowest levels in years, with crime rates on the U.S. side down as well.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer has even asked the White House for the deployment of more unmanned drones, the kind currently being used in Iraq and Afghanistan, to patrol the border.

Let’s be real. Such theatrics are not helpful to the debate, and neither is playing politics with border security.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010 ... he-border/

Playing politics with border security is sending 1200 clerks to the border with one hand, while the other hand is pulling amnesty of of the magician's hat.