http://www.elpasotimes.com/ci_15404642

Troop share uncertain: El Paso waits to hear on Guard soldiers deploying to border

By Ramon Bracamontes \ El Paso Times
Posted: 06/30/2010 12:00:00 AM MDT

EL PASO -- Whether any of the 250 National Guard soldiers to be deployed on the Texas-Mexico border will be sent to El Paso is uncertain.

Several political leaders said they have not been told where the soldiers will be deployed and the only thing they have been told is that Texas will get 250 soldiers, Arizona will receive 524, California will get 224 and New Mexico will get 72.

The deployment of the soldiers to the border is one topic of a letter sent to Congress seeking hearings on the deaths of two people -- including a 15-year-old boy from Juárez killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent -- and the militarization of the border region.

Drew Brandewie, deputy press secretary for Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said Tuesday that a breakdown of where the troops in Texas would be going was not available. Spokespeople for the U.S. Border Patrol, U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-Texas, and U.S. Rep. Harry Teague, D-New Mexico, also said they did not have specifics.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's office referred all questions to the White House.

U.S. Sen. Jeff Bingaman, D-New Mexico, said the 72 new Guard members deployed in New Mexico will be from the New Mexico National Guard. They will join the 70 members of the New Mexico National Guard who are already deployed along the New Mexico-Mexico border.

"While we have made important strides in reducing the number of people illegally entering our country, we still have some more work to do when it comes to addressing drug-related criminal
activity along the border," Bingaman said in a news release. "This increased National Guard presence will be helpful as we continue to find permanent solutions to securing our border communities."

Lt. Col. Jamison Herrera, a New Mexico National Guard spokesman, said the additional 72 soldiers to be assigned to the border will have duties separate from the other soldiers who typically work with the New Mexico Counterdrug Program. The program helps fight drug trafficking into the U.S. from Mexico.

"These additional soldiers will provide criminal investigative analysis as well as ground surveillance," Herrera said. "They will be augmenting duties already being conducted by the Border Patrol."

Herrera added that tentative plans call for a training period, in which the soldiers become proficient with the specific duties they will take on, before being placed full-time at the border.

"We expect them to be at the border sometime within the next 90 days," Herrera said.

The number of soldiers to be deployed in New Mexico is dwarfed by the number assigned to the border during Operation Jump Start. During the height of that operation, conducted from June 2006 until August 2008, about 1,000 National Guard soldiers were in New Mexico.

They built barriers to deter illegal immigration, built sections of a border fence near Columbus, and provided surveillance and patrols along the border.

The National Guard deployment along the border is part of President Barack Obama's $600 million border security plan. The White House said the extra Guard troops would be used to provide intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance support, as well as backup to counternarcotics enforcement, until more civilian officers are trained and stationed at the border.

The soldiers are expected to begin arriving in August.

The decision by Obama to send troops to the border came after a rancher in Arizona was killed by an undocumented immigrant who fled back to Mexico after the shooting.

Since then, several elected officials in Arizona, including its governor, Jan Brewer, have been asking for help in securing the border.

The American Civil Liberties Union and more than 30 organizations sent a letter to Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, seeking hearings into the deaths of Sergio Adrian Hernández Güereca of Juárez and Anastasio Hernández Rojas of San Diego, both killed by U.S. agents.

Hernández from Juárez was shot and killed June 7 by a U.S. Border Patrol agent who shot into Mexico after he was pelted with rocks while trying to arrest several men who had crossed into the U.S. illegally.

The other Hernández died May 31 near San Diego after he was hit with a stun gun.

"Excessive lethal force is always unacceptable, but it is particularly troubling now as 1,200 National Guard are being deployed to the southwest border and some members of Congress are calling for increased border security and militarization of the southwest border zone," said the letter.