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Five months in, national guard helps reduce gaps at border

A National Guardsman patrols the border from halfway up Otay Mountain on Monday. California’s contingent of about 260 troops has helped detect illegal immigrants and worked with authorities on drug-smuggling investigations.

By Elizabeth Aguilera - SD Union Tribune
Wednesday, December 29, 2010 at 12:24 p.m.

California’s volunteers for the Southwest Border Mission add about 10 percent in staffing to the Border Patrol’s 2,500 agents. They are scheduled to stay until next summer.

California National Guard members have assisted in 1,319 apprehensions along the state’s boundary with Mexico, where they have worked since August in support of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under an Obama administration plan to beef up border security.

“They are extra eyes and ears,” said Staff Sgt. Jessica Inigo, spokeswoman for the National Guard Southwest Border Mission.

The state’s contingent of 260 soldiers assigned to the San Diego sector adds about 10 percent in staffing to the Border Patrol’s 2,500 agents. In addition to arrests, the soldiers have deterred 180 individuals from illegal entry, said Steven Pitts, spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

The soldiers “are helping us to deter people from making entry and when they do make entry, (the troops) are helping us make apprehensions through their detection,” he said.

In May, President Barack Obama committed 1,200 National Guard troops to the southern border for a year. California selected 260 volunteers for the Southwest Border Mission, Inigo said.

Arizona, New Mexico and Texas also used Guard troops for their respective parts of the federal project.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security officially wanted the soldiers to contribute to enforcement by directly working with border agents, but there were no official quotas or other detailed expectations. Inigo said the troops’ tasks can vary based on the Border Patrol’s needs.

In 2006, when President George W. Bush called up National Guard units to provide border support during Operation Jump Start, he had them build fences and do other nonenforcement duties.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports the federal effort to send National Guard soldiers as a temporary measure, said Rachel Arrezola, a spokeswoman for the governor.

“While more troops are a good beginning, the governor continues to believe the federal government needs to address our broken immigration system with a more permanent solution and take action on comprehensive immigration reform,” she said.


California’s volunteers for the Southwest Border Mission add about 10 percent in staffing to the Border Patrol’s 2,500 agents. They are scheduled to stay until next summer.


The Guard’s presence at the border comes amid reduced apprehensions because of reasons such as a weak U.S. economy. The number of arrests in 2010 is down compared with last year, according to Customs and Border Protection and the governor’s office.

In July, before the soldiers arrived, apprehensions totaled 5,113. Then there were 4,528 arrests in August and 4,012 in September.

A year earlier, August and September apprehensions averaged about 6,500 a month.

Comparisons for October through December weren’t possible because figures for the last quarter of 2010 haven’t been released.

“The main thing is there are no gaps in detection,” Inigo said. “We let the Border Patrol know what we see and they get on it. We then continue to watch the same spot. The Border Patrol is using this as a way to ensure there are no coverage gaps.”

National Guard troops work in two capacities with federal enforcement agencies.

Groups of two or more make up Entry Identification Teams, which use thermal and infrared equipment to detect illegal entry. The soldiers relay information to Border Patrol agents, who directly confront those crossing the border and make arrests.

The soldiers are not trained to determine a border crosser’s legality, and various treaties prohibit certain activity by the soldiers along the border, Pitts said without elaborating.

In addition to detection teams, a small number of National Guard personnel are serving as intelligence analysts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on narcotics and human-trafficking investigations, Pitts said. Those soldiers had a direct impact on finding a drug tunnel and 15 tons of marijuana in early November.

The Southwest Border Mission attracted 3,000 volunteers for the 260 slots, Inigo said.

She estimates that nearly half of the soldiers on the mission, including her, were active-duty and that nearly as many had recently completed a deployment in South Asia or the Middle East.

A National Guard captain who asked not to be named for security reasons said he applied for the border mission to help bolster California’s security.

The officer, who served two tours in Iraq, said his job reminds him of combat duty except that he now reports what he sees to the Border Patrol instead of calling for artillery troops.

Four months into his latest assignment, he’s considering a career with the Border Patrol.

“This is safer, different,” said the captain, who oversees about 60 soldiers. “In Iraq, I was hunting people and here we are just detecting them.”

Inigo said there are no plans at this time for the Southwest Border Mission to be extended. But that could change anytime, especially with a new governor set to take office next month.

“Our primary focus through the transition is on the budget and California’s fiscal crisis,” said Evan Westrup, a spokesman for Gov.-elect Jerry Brown. “After (he) takes office in the new year, the current deployment and a number of other decisions will be assessed.”


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