Border governors worried about National Guard pullout

CHRISTOPHER SHERMAN

Published: 06.20.2008

McALLEN, Texas — The thousands of National Guardsmen sent to reinforce the U.S.-Mexican border two years ago have almost completely withdrawn, despite pleas from border-state governors once skeptical of using soldiers to catch illegal immigrants and drug smugglers.

When the Guard was posted along the southern frontier in 2006 to help the strapped Border Patrol, critics warned that sending soldiers would be an insult to Mexico and that innocents could get shot by troops trained for combat, not law enforcement.

But none of that happened, and now those worries have given way to fears that a bloody drug-cartel war on the Mexican side will spill into the U.S. and overwhelm the Border Patrol.

The four border-state governors who contributed the bulk of the troops have tried in vain to persuade Congress and the White House to extend the Guard's presence, which will end as scheduled on July 15.

"Until Border Patrol has all its new boots on the ground, there's going to be a vulnerability," said Pahl Shipley, spokesman for New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson.

Measure seeks to keep Guard on the border

Mitchell amendment would extend its presence till Patrol is up to speed

By Josh Brodesky and Tom Beal

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Over the last two years, thousands of National Guard troops have assisted U.S. Border Patrol agents along the Mexican border, and most of Arizona's congressional delegation wants to keep it that way.

A proposed amendment by Rep. Harry Mitchell, a Demo-crat who represents much of Maricopa County in Arizona's 5th Congressional District, would extend the National Guard presence indefinitely until the Border Patrol is fully staffed along the border.

Since 2006, 17,300 National Guard soldiers and airmen have voluntarily deployed to the Mexican border to support the Border Patrol under a program known as Operation Jump Start, said National Guard spokeswoman Capt. Kristine Munn.

Their primary mission, said Munn, has been aviation support, including search and rescue, but the Guard has also put in roads, fences, vehicle barriers and wells. It has observed the border, "acting as the eyes and ears of the Border Patrol," but has "no law enforcement duties whatsoever," Munn said.

At the program's peak, 6,000 soldiers were stationed along the border, 2,400 of them in Arizona.

National Guard Soldiers Stop Illegal Entry Attempt in Texas

Friday, March 07, 2008

Laredo, Texas – Texas National Guard Soldiers assigned to the Laredo sector as part of Operation Jump Start foiled an attempt by three people to illegally enter the United States on Thursday.

The soldiers responded to reports of suspicious activity near the Rio Grande River in Laredo. They observed three people walk out of the brush along the riverbank and get into a vehicle that drove up to meet them. As the vehicle drove away, the soldiers followed it at a safe distance. After the vehicle traveled a short way, the driver noticed that the soldiers were following behind. Without warning, all four occupants jumped out of the vehicle while it was still in motion.

The soldiers were able to detain all of the subjects until Border Patrol agents arrived to the scene.

A passerby was able to stop the vehicle before it ran off the roadway.

Border Patrol aims to continue positive trends

BY JEFFREY GAUTREAUX, SUN STAFF WRITER

April 10, 2007 - 11:31PM

Illegal alien apprehensions dropped 67 percent after President George W. Bush's first visit to Yuma in May 2006. After the president's second visit, the Border Patrol's Yuma sector hopes to keep that trend going.

Senior Patrol Agent Maranda Weber said the sector wants to keep the numbers low, but it is difficult to make predictions. "We just keep going out there and doing our job."

The decrease in apprehensions and illegal entries was the result of increased technology, tactical infrastructure and manpower. Operation Jump Start, which has put National Guard members on the border for surveillance and other tasks, has also played a role in improved border control.

The improved border security has led to increased violence against agents, a result the Border Patrol expected.

Bush visits Yuma, set to inspect border security measures

Apr 9, 11:31 AM EDT
By ARTHUR H. ROTSTEIN
Associated Press Writer

YUMA, Ariz. (AP) -- President Bush arrived here Monday for an update on the National Guard's progress in helping the Border Patrol secure the border, and to resume his stump for comprehensive immigration reform.

Gov. Janet Napolitano, an advocate of National guard involvement, was set to accompany the president as he set out on a tour of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Last May, the president kicked off a plan to send 6,000 National Guard troops to Arizona, Texas, California and New Mexico to assist the Border Patrol along the Mexican border in efforts to cut illegal immigration.

Under the plan, guardsmen were assigned a number of duties for up to two years in assisting the patrol, without actually patrolling the border or acting in any law enforcement capacity, while the Border Patrol hires another 6,000 agents to bring its total to 18,000.

_____

Apr 9, 10:22 AM EDT

On the border, Bush returns focus to immigration

By BEN FELLER
Associated Press Writer

CRAWFORD, Texas (AP) -- President Bush returns to work Monday on the volatile issue of immigration, where his hope for a legislative breakthrough is complicated by cold relations with Congress.

Bush will be back in Yuma, Ariz., to inspect the construction of border fencing and to push for the creation of a guest worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants. The trip serves as a bookend to the visit Bush made to the same southwest desert city last May.

It also comes as tension rises over a new immigration proposal tied to the White House.

Bush's team is privately working hard to rally votes for what Bush calls comprehensive reform - a mix of get-tough security with promises of fair treatment for undocumented residents.

_____

Bush aims for reform at border

Return trip to Yuma to focus on migration
Sean Holstege
The Arizona Republic
Apr. 9, 2007 12:00 AM

President Bush returns to Yuma today to promote what the White House called "significant immigration reform," one year after he announced the deployment of 6,000 National Guard troops along the Mexican border.

_____

Bush arrives in Yuma
Published: 04.09.2007
Tucson Citizen

YUMA, Ariz. - President Bush arrived here today for an update on the National Guard's progress in helping the Border Patrol secure the border, and to resume his stump for comprehensive immigration reform.

Jump Start tightening border gap

BY SARAH REYNOLDS, SUN STAFF WRITER

April 8, 2007 - 10:03PM

The National Guard's Operation Jump Start hit the ground on July 1, 2006. After more than nine months, officials say it's improving the situation on the border, but there is much work left to be done.

Maj. Paul Aguirre, a spokesman for the Arizona National Guard, said there are about 6,000 troops on the U.S.-Mexican border assigned to Operation Jump Start at any given time. The project has put troops on the border to help U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents with logistics and observation activities.

Agent Lloyd Easterling, spokesman for the Yuma sector Border Patrol, said about 90 agents have been recruited since Operation Jump Start began.

About 2,400 Guard troops, or 40 percent, are assigned to Arizona. Numbers within the Yuma sector were not immediately available.

"That’s been a fairly consistent number over the last months. It ebbs and flows by a few hundred, depending on who comes out that day or that week," Aguirre said.

Troops from National Guard units from all over the country rotate in and out of the state to work on the mission.

Bush to visit border near Yuma Monday

The Arizona Republic

Published: 04.05.2007

President Bush is scheduled to return to Yuma on Monday - Gov. Janet Napolitano in tow - nearly one year after the announcement of Operation Jump Start and its roughly 6,000 National Guard soldiers to shore up the nation's southern border.

Days after announcing the Guard buildup in mid-May, Bush went to Yuma and spoke along the border in a heavily fortified spot, chain-link fence and concertina wire at his back. The message was clear: The president intended to crack down on illegal crossings.

But in the year or so since, Operation Jump Start has met with mixed reviews.

About 2,400 Guard soldiers are along Arizona's border on any given day and will be there for another year. Their two years at the border will give the Border Patrol time to recruit and train 9,000 new officers.

Officials, including Napolitano, say there has been a marked decrease in illegal crossings since the Guard arrived.

Bush visit will focus on border, immigration

Border Patrol Agents Arrest Wanted Murder Suspect

National Guard Assists in Apprehension
Monday, April 02, 2007

Brownsville, Texas — U.S. Customs and Border Protection Border Patrol agents of the Rio Grande Valley Sector arrested an individual with an outstanding warrant for murder out of North Carolina.

The arrest occurred on March 31, when agents assigned to the Brownsville Border Patrol station responded to activity monitored by the Remote Video Surveillance System operated by a Texas National Guard Soldier in support of Operation Jump Start. Upon arriving to the indicated area, agents encountered four subjects hiding in the brush near the river. Agents questioned the subjects and determined that they were all Mexican nationals illegally present the United States. During processing, the four subjects were fingerprinted using the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Record checks identified one of the subjects to be a Marco Antonio RIVERA, a thirty-year old Mexican national, with an outstanding warrant of arrest out of Greensboro, North Carolina for murder.

Tour reveals dynamics, efforts along border

Guest Opinion:
TIM BEE
Published: 03.29.2007

As Arizonans continue to debate illegal immigration, it is important that lawmakers and citizens understand the dynamics of our border communities and the agencies involved in their security.

I hosted a tour this month to give legislators a firsthand view of border operations and efforts to secure our border.

The 2,400 National Guard troops stationed in Arizona are building and repairing roads, fixing and erecting walls and lighting, repairing vehicles and ultimately relieving the Border Patrol of its nonlaw-enforcement work to allow more time to focus on enforcement of federal immigration law.

The National Guard members act as observation teams, the eyes and ears of the detection operation.

In a year, they have identified 316,000 possible illegal immigrants. This is akin to the entire city of Chandler coming into our country illegally. Of this number, 36,000 had criminal records in the United States.

Migrant arrests plunge

National Guard lookout teams given credit

By LEON ALLIGOOD

Published: 03.12.2007

YUMA - Arrests of illegal immigrants are down by two-thirds this fiscal year compared with the same time last fiscal year, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.

The reason: National Guardsmen who camp along the U.S.-Mexican border to act as lookouts for a Border Patrol that's stretched thin.

"The only thing we are to do is to be eyes and ears for the BP," said 1st Sgt. Barry Lester of the 269th Military Police Battalion of the Tennessee Army National Guard. "When we see something, we call them, and they are quick to respond."

Teams of four Guardsmen are on duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week. They typically stay on site for 48 hours and then are replaced with another foursome. They are equipped with high-powered binoculars and night-vision equipment.

That has translated into about 19,000 arrests so far this fiscal year compared with roughly 75,000 for the same time last year.

Soldiers hone skills, aid Border Patrol

By Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
El Paso Times
Photo by Rudy Gutierrez / El Paso Times
Article Launched:03/08/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Thumbing a joystick button, Lt. Col. John W. Thompson rotates a mast-mounted ball on top of a Kiowa Warrior helicopter as it sits on the tarmac at Biggs Army Airfield.

Views on two green-tinted screens set in the narrow cockpit's dashboard slide up the spine of the Franklin Mountains.

Using infrared radar, the unit's 21 Kiowas have been flying night missions to scout smuggling corridors for suspicious activity.

"With the desert cool at night, and when someone is running and sweating, they stick out like a sore thumb," Thompson said. "I can tell whether it's a man or a woman, whether they have a jacket on or a hat, whether they're smoking a cigarette or what have you. ... We've also seen lots of rabbits, cows and deer."

Flying between 500 and 1,000 feet above the ground with the helicopter doors off to provide a better view, the "left-seat" navigator is responsible for scanning with the radar, while the pilot, in the right seat, maneuvers the aircraft.

Troops on Mexican Border Get Citizenship

The Associated Press on Topix.net
By MICHELLE ROBERTS

March 02, 2007

Six soldiers deployed to the Mexican border became U.S. citizens Friday, apparently the first troops to take advantage of expedited citizenship rules while deployed to keep out illegal immigrants.

The six members of the Texas National Guard were among those sent to aid the Border Patrol after President Bush called for 6,000 troops on the southwest border in May.

TN governor unsure about increased Guard duties on border

ERIK SCHELZIG
The Associated Press

TUCSON - Tennessee Gov. Phil Bredesen says he's going to have to carefully consider whether the role of National Guardsmen along the U.S.-Mexico border should be changed.

Bredesen has previously deflected criticism of the rules for when guardsmen are allowed to use force and whether they should be allowed to detain illegal immigrants.

"There's always a concern about using the military for police purposes within (U.S.) borders," Bredesen said while visiting Tennessee guard troops near the Arizona-Mexico border on Thursday. "And at the same time, these are very well-trained people, and the problem is obviously enormous."

According to Wikipedia:

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on 1878-06-18 after the end of Reconstruction. The Act was intended to prohibit Federal troops from supervising elections in former Confederate states. It generally prohibits Federal military personnel and units of the United States National Guard under Federal authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within the United States, except where expressly authorized by the Constitution or Congress.

The governor is obviously confused or ignorant of the law, neither is surprising. It is for exactly a situation such as we have on the border that the National Guard should be deployed. 12 million people illegally in the USA constitutes an invasion. -mm

Guardsmen find mostly positive reception in Ariz. duty

Erik Schelzig

Associated Press Writer
Mar. 4, 2007 12:00 AM

YUMA - Tennessee National Guardsman supporting border enforcement along the Arizona-Mexico border describe appreciative U.S. farmers thanking them with cabbages and fresh honey.

Some of their fields are now able to sustain crops better than when larger numbers of illegal immigrants trampled them crossing the Colorado River into Yuma, Guard officials said.

Operation Linebacker | 1 year later

Border crime down; many still fear immigrants targeted

By Brandi Grissom and Louie Gilot / El Paso Times

Article Launched: 02/25/2007 12:00:00 AM MST

Flash Graphic: Operation Linebacker Crime Rates

Related: State money helped smaller counties most

AUSTIN -- Crime in Texas border counties dropped overall in the first year of Gov. Rick Perry's state-led border security operations, but increased in some of the border's most populated and violent regions.

Crime dropped in the 16 Texas-Mexico border counties by 8.2 percent on average between 2005 to 2006, two years of crime report data the El Paso Times analyzed show.

"This is clear evidence that our state-led border security initiatives are having a sustained impact and are making all Texans safer," Perry said through a spokeswoman.

State officials say the borderwide statistics show that security operations are meeting their intended goal: preventing and reducing crime. The numbers, Texas Homeland Security Director Steve McCraw said, contradict critics' complaints that Perry's efforts are little more than a disguised strategy to round up undocumented immigrants.

U.S. troop deployment cuts crossings from Mexico

Reuters

SAN LUIS, Arizona - Using troops to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico has cut the flow of illegal immigrants crossing north by more than 40 percent since June, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said on Tuesday.

President George W. Bush ordered 6,000 National Guard troops to the border in May as a stopgap measure to boost frontier security for two years while more Border Patrol officers are recruited.

Every year, many Mexicans risk their lives by trying to sneak across the border, looking to escape poverty. Millions of illegal Mexican immigrants who work in the United States send home billions of dollars each year to their families.

Chertoff, speaking at a news conference by a stretch of steel fence on the Arizona-Mexico border, said the number of illegal immigrants arrested crossing the border had fallen by between 40 and 55 percent in subsequent quarters.

"This is the kind of tangible indication of progress that the American people have been waiting for," Chertoff said beside a 15-foot (4.6-meter) barrier built by troops under Operation Jump Start.

"We are ... walking the walk and actually getting the tools on the border that the Border Patrol needs to do the job."

Tougher Tactics Deter Migrants at U.S. Border

Article published Feb 21, 2007

JAMES C. MCKINLEY JR.

SAN LUIS RÍO COLORADO, Mexico — For 10 years, Eduardo Valenzuela has been crossing the border illegally near Yuma, Ariz., trekking over desert scrub and hopping a freight train to get back to his job with a construction company in Phoenix. The clandestine trip has become an annual ritual for him, as he goes home each winter to see his children.

But on a recent afternoon he and four travel companions from his hometown, Los Mochis, plopped down on a bench in a park in the border town of San Luis Río Colorado, exhausted and dispirited. They were beat. Border Patrol agents had caught them twice over three days, hounding them with helicopters and four-wheel-drive trucks.

All along the border, there are signs that the measures the Border Patrol and other federal agencies have taken over the last year, from erecting new barriers to posting 6,000 National Guardsmen as armed sentinels, are beginning to slow the flow of illegal immigrants.

Guard team again visited by possibly armed men

By Brady McCombs

ARIZONA DAILY STAR

A group of possibly armed men approached a National Guard observation team near Sasabe Friday night, marking the third close encounter of the year and second in that area.

Armed National Guard members working in an entrance-identification team west of the Rancho de la Osa near Sasabe radioed the Border Patrol about a group of several men approaching their post within 100 yards, said Rob Daniels, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman.

Border Patrol officials sent a Black Hawk helicopter and agents in vehicles to the area, Daniels said. They arrived within five to seven minutes, he said.

No shots were fired and there was no altercation but the guardsmen were definitely approached, Daniels said.

On US-Mexico border, illegal crossings drop

National Guard troops are having a deterrent effect, dropping the attempt rate 62 percent in one busy sector.
By Faye Bowers | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
YUMA, ARIZ.

One phrase sums up both the chief achievement and complaint of National Guard soldiers and airmen posted along this dusty strip of border with Mexico: "Nothing happening."

That's good news for Operation Jumpstart, President Bush's eight-month-old initiative to reinforce America's southern border with National Guard troops until enough border patrol agents are trained. The extra troops appear to be discouraging people from trying to cross illegally.

Apprehensions of illegal immigrants in the Yuma sector – one of the busiest for the past two years and a top target for the operation – have dropped 62 percent in the last four months compared with the same period a year ago. That's the biggest drop of all nine border patrol sectors on the frontier with Mexico and double the average decline. The amount of marijuana seized in the Yuma sector fell 36 percent for the same period.

The figures for the entire southern border – a 27 decline in apprehensions and a 51 percent increase in marijuana seized – are encouraging, experts say.

House panel backs letting Guard arrest illegal crossers

By Howard Fischer

CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX — A House panel voted Monday to spend state tax dollars to put National Guard troops on the border to actually begin apprehending those who cross the border illegally.

The 6-4 vote by the House Committee on Homeland Security and Property Rights would authorize Gov. Janet Napolitano to deploy Guard units in cases of a declared emergency because of "unauthorized border crossings" resulting in an increase in deaths, crime and property damage.

Rep. Warde Nichols, R-Chandler, said Napolitano probably can already do that. But HB 2766 actually would give her the necessary $10 million, enough said Nichols for 100 soldiers for a year.

But the measure comes with a hitch: The soldiers actually would have to be in the primary role of catching border crossers. That differs from the approximately 2,000 Guard troops now in Southern Arizona doing support functions ranging from surveillance to repairs.