Border Security?

Some local officials are claiming “increased border security” as a result of the deployment of various state national guard units to the US-Mexico border.  The policy is affectionately labeled “Operation Jump Start” – presumably because it gets a jump on any enhanced border militarization authorized by Congress, but who knows? 

A story by Louie Gilot in today’s El Paso Times reports:

The support by the soldiers, who mostly do surveillance and maintenance work, freed up 167 Border Patrol agents to return to the field.

The soldiers are also credited with contributing in the apprehension of 518 undocumented immigrants and the seizure of 4,700 pounds of marijuana and 18.5 pounds of cocaine.

So in this context, “border security” refers to the apprehension of undocumented migrants and of illegal narcotics.

Earlier descriptions of “Operation Jump Start” indicated that members of the guard would not be involved in actually detaining immigrants.  In a June 18, 2006 story in the NYTimes by Randall Archibald, the program was described as follows:

Most of the Guard members will be unarmed unless they are in a hazardous area. Much of their time will be spent in Border Patrol offices watching monitors and handling other equipment, while those in the field will alert Border Patrol agents if they see someone crossing the border illegally.

”The National Guard is not going to be involved in any law enforcement mission,” Mr. Martinez [a Border Patrol spokesman] said. ”Actual arrests, seizures, custodial — none of that stuff. The Border Patrol agents are the ones trained to determine probable cause, effect arrests, and it is impossible to bring the National Guard up to speed on that.”

I haven’t been able to figure out from the reports published to date on Operation Jump Start whether or not this is how things are actually unfolding on the ground. 

-jmc