National Guard Needed to Secure Border
May 26, 2010
by Wais Hassan
The idea of sending National Guard troops to the Arizona border has been floating around the Washington policy community since last March and calls for help became more vocal during the past few months. The April passage of AZ bill 1070 brought even greater attention to the border crisis in Arizona. Just yesterday, President Obama, in a likely attempt to appease critics, authorized the deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the border
According to the Associated Press, The National Guard troops will, “provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance support,” as well as support “counternarcotics enforcement” and provide “training capacity” until the Border Patrol can bring more officers on board. The additional funding would be used to improve border security technology and increase the number of agents, investigators and prosecutors targeting drug, human and weapons traffickers. The President will also ask Congress for $500 million to pay for additional border patrol agents, investigators, and prosecutors.
Reaction to the deployment has been mixed. Arizona governor Jan Brewer stated the deployment was a “very significant and important shift in the President’s immigration and border security policy. She additionally stated, “I am pleased that President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal immigration without other pre-conditions, such as passage of ‘comprehensive immigration reform.’” She was unsure, however, what function the troops would serve and how long they would be deployed.
Arizona Senators Jon Kyl and John McCain expressed much more cynicism regarding the President’s latest move. Kyl said he heard that, “the 1,200 border patrol troops are, in effect, desk jobs. He added, “They aren’t boots on the ground at the border.” In a joint statement, McCain and Kyl declared that although Obama’s move was, “an important first step, the President is not sending enough troops.” Noting that in 2006, President George W. Bush sent 6,000 National Guardsmen to the Southwest border, they said, “We believe the situation on the border is far worse today than it was then due to the escalating violence between the Mexican drug cartels and the Mexican government.”
Bush’s previous 2-year commitment of National Guardsmen was labeled “Operation Jump Start.” In that mission, the Guard fulfilled supporting roles, which freed up Homeland Security officers to police the border. During that time, the border patrol swelled to 18,000 members. Analysts dispute the effectiveness of the “Operation Jump Start” mission. According to the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, the Yuma Sector of the Arizona border experienced a 68 % decrease in apprehensions between October 1, 2006, and July 31, 2007, compared with the previous year. Border-wide, the National Guard helped seize more than 1,080 vehicles used to transport drugs and/or illegal immigrants, more than 300,600 pounds of marijuana, and 5,060 pounds of cocaine. Overall, 24% fewer illegal aliens were able to cross the border during the OJS period.
Although these statistics are somewhat impressive, many argue that if a larger number of troops were dedicated to the border in 2006, illegal migration would have decreased enormously. The late U.S. Rep. Charlie Norwood (R-GA), the driving force behind the OJS program, after studying the Border problem had recommended in 2005 that 36,000 troops, or 18 personnel per mile, would create an impenetrable border. Border states received only 16% of Norwood’s recommended troops, and still reduced illegal entries by 24 percent. There is a distinct possibility that 36,000 troops could have actually sealed our borders. While the 36,000-troop deployment sounds expensive, it is far less costly than the higher costs of illegal immigration. The Federation for American Immigration Reform estimates that the net annual cost of illegal immigration is at least $70 billion per year. The 36,000-man deployment would have only cost around $2.4 billion per year. Obviously, if larger deployments can significantly reduce illegal immigration and violence along the border they essentially pay for themselves.
Many observers justifiably doubt that the 1,200-guard deployment signals a tougher immigration framework by the Obama Administration. It could simply be a response to greater levels of narco-violence along the border; a topic that dominated discussion during Mexican president Felipe Calderón’s recent visit to Washington. The Mexican embassy has already released a statement that states, “the Government of Mexico expects that National Guard personnel will strengthen US operations in the fight against transnational organized crime that operates on both sides of our common border and that it will not, in accordance to its legal obligations, conduct activities directly linked to the enforcement of immigration laws.” The Mexican government is hardly in a position to dictate policy; considering the wide scale corruption and drug violence that currently besets almost all provinces within Mexico. It remains to be seen which function Guard troops will engage in but a disengagement from immigration enforcement will only endanger public safety of U.S. citizens along the U.S.-Mexican border.
