Operation Jump Start Guardsmen arrive here

BY TAMMY KRIKORIAN, SUN STAFF WRITER
Jun 18, 2006

More than 50 soldiers from the Arizona National Guard arrived in the Yuma sector over the weekend to support the U.S. Border Patrol.

The group is the first batch of National Guard troops to be deployed as part of Operation Jump Start, President Bush's plan to curb illegal immigration by sending up to 6,000 troops to the four southern border states to assist federal immigration agents.

Chief Patrol Agent Ron Colburn said this first group is the "forward unit" and there will be more arriving later this month.

"It's exciting for the whole community that the first boots on the ground arrived today in Yuma for Operation Jump Start," he said Sunday.

Once the operation is "fully flush," he said, there will be several hundred National Guard personnel assigned to the Yuma sector.

The group that arrived over the weekend could spend several months, or up to a year, in Yuma.

The majority will be unarmed, performing support functions that will allow more Border Patrol agents to work in the field.