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Tucson Region
Guard numbers on border to be halved
Support mission to end entirely by Sept. 2008
By Brady McCombs
Arizona Daily Star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 07.25.2007
The number of National Guard troops along the Arizona-Mexico border will be trimmed in half by the end of next month.
As the presidentially mandated Operation Jumpstart mission begins its second year in support of the U.S. Border Patrol, the number of troops is being reduced as planned. It will be trimmed from 6,000 to 3,000 nationally and from 2,400 to 1,200 in Arizona, said National Guard Capt. Kristine Munn. The pullout began July 1 and is scheduled to be completed by Sept. 1.
Since arriving in June 2006, National Guard soldiers have helped free up agents to patrol by manning radios and control rooms, and repairing vehicles, roads and fences. They have also provided extra eyes and ears on the border with observation posts called entrance identification teams stationed along the border on hills or peaks.
The federal government has spent $899,416 on the mission in fiscal years 2006-07, said Lt. Col. Mike Milord, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau in Virginia. It is scheduled to run through the end of fiscal year 2008, which ends in September 2008.
The downsizing of the National Guard forces will be detrimental to the Border Patrol's efforts to slow illegal immigration, said agency officials, the local union and a former agency supervisor.
"If they are going to reduce the number of National Guard on the line it means there are fewer bodies out there to deter and observe and report intrusions," said Dave Stoddard, a former Border Patrol supervisor who retired in 1996 after 27 years with the agency, and lives in Bisbee. "It's going to hurt, but how much we really don't know yet."
Others, though, say good riddance. The Guard presence has increased the militarization of the border and forced illegal entrants to try crossing in more remote areas, said Jennifer Allen, director of Border Action Network, a Tucson-based immigrants' rights organization.
"We're glad that the number of troops is decreasing, but it would be even better if there were no National Guard on the border," Allen said.
Building roads and barriers
The mission's first year included tangible achievements such as building 16 miles of all-weather roads, 35 miles of vehicle barriers and constructing, replacing or adding on to 16 miles of primary fencing.
Their work in observation posts and in helicopters has been lauded by the agency for deterring and spotting illegal immigrants. More than 8,200 apprehensions were made and 46,849 pounds of narcotics seized as as a result of groups spotted by National Guard helicopters, Munn said.
The Border Patrol credits their presence for an 11 percent reduction in apprehensions in the Tucson Sector (which covers from New Mexico to the Yuma County line) since June 2006, compared to the year before. The decrease in apprehensions shows fewer illegal immigrants are crossing in the sector, officials say.
The first year wasn't without hitches, though. In January, a group of armed men, including at least one carrying an AK-47, approached four Tennessee guardsmen at a post east of Sasabe, forcing them to vacate the post and move back.
No shots were fired and nobody was hurt, but it ignited criticism from the public and politicians who wanted to know why the team retreated. On Jan. 29, state legislators grilled Maj. Gen. David Rataczak, who defended the soldiers' actions in a House committee hearing about the incident.
The National Guard wasn't able to slow drug smuggling, either. The amount of marijuana seized in the Tucson Sector increased by 25 percent from June 2006 to June 2007, compared with the same time period in the previous year.
The number of border deaths stayed almost the same, too. From June 2006 through June 2007, 253 bodies of illegal border crossers were discovered, compared to 258 the same time period the year before, according to the Arizona Daily Star border death database, which collects information from the Pima and Cochise county medical examiners.
The Guard's work on road construction, vehicle maintenance and radio operations — duties that prevent Border Patrol agents from patrolling — has been beneficial and will be missed if scaled back, said Mike Albon, spokesman for Local 2544, a chapter of the National Border Patrol Council, the union for agents.
The observation posts, though, aren't as helpful and wouldn't be missed as much, he said. For starters, they can't make apprehensions, meaning an agent has to respond to the soldier's sightings. Secondly, agents often had to keep on eye on the troops who were stationed in dangerous areas.
"They've never been able to apprehend and that's the assistance that the Border Patrol really needs," Albon said.
Stoddard had the opposite take. The National Guard administrative work won't be missed but their presence in observation posts will, he said.
"The most beneficial overall effect is the actual, physical presence on the line," Stoddard said.
National Guard troops helped the agency fast-track construction of all-weather roads and vehicle barriers and repairs of fences and vehicles, said Jim Hawkins, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. With more agents in the sector now — 2,700 compared with 2,400 when the mission began — they'll likely be able to make do, he said.
"It will have an effect, but we do have a lot more agents here in the sector so we can probably fill a lot of those voids," he said.
The scaling back was part of the plan from the start of the mission that President Bush called for on May 15, 2006. The president sent the troops to provide temporary relief while the agency worked toward adding 6,000 new agents to reach a total of 18,000 by the end of 2008.
The growth would be unprecedented for an agency that from 1992 to 2006 increased its total number of agents by an average of 530 a year, from 4,139 to 12,084. Agency officials say they're devoting unprecedented resources and money to the hiring push this time, but due to attrition, the agency anticipates needing to hire and train about 9,100 agents to meet the goal, according to a Government Accountability Office report.
Through June 23, the agency had added about 1,700 agents since the president's address, increasing its ranks to 13,701, said Lloyd Easterling, Border Patrol headquarters spokesman. The agency is on track to have 14,500 agents by the end of September as two classes a week are graduating from the academy, he said.
Uncertain future
The Border Patrol hasn't made any concrete decisions yet about how it will utilize the reduced number of National Guard troops, Hawkins said.
"It's still fairly early in the process," Hawkins said. "Each station has to evaluate their most critical needs."
There's been scuttlebutt about prolonging Operation Jumpstart but officials haven't decided if they'll continue the mission into a third year, Munn said.
They should, Stoddard says. Even if the agency hires additional agents, it takes rookies three to five years to be able to adequately and confidently respond to all situations, he said. Having the National Guard would help ease that transition.
"It would be extremely wise," Stoddard said. "It would definitely be beneficial to the Border Patrol and beneficial to the nation as a whole to have this extra personnel right on the border for eyes and ears."
On StarNet: Find more border news and multimedia presentations at azstarnet.com/border
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