Posted on 07/19/2006 3:37:38 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – Nine hundred soldiers of the California National Guard are at work along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of Operation Jump Start – improving roads, repairing fences, manning surveillance cameras. Just about everything, in fact, except patrolling the border.
Called Joint Task Force Vista, the force is expected eventually to grow to about 1,100 soldiers covering the border from the Pacific Ocean to the Arizona state line, said Col. Kevin Ellsworth, task force commander. On Wednesday, Ellsworth and his staff gave reporters a peek at their operations along the border, which began last month.
“We've had an amazing response from the citizen-soldiers of California,” he said. “We have 900 on duty and all are volunteers. We're maintaining a waiting list.”
Operation Jump Start grew out of a Memorandum of Understanding this summer between the Defense Department and the four states along the Mexican border: California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
That agreement bars Guard troops from taking part in “overt” law enforcement. Because of that, as well as existing “Posse Comitatus” laws, Guard units won't be patrolling the border or apprehending illegal immigrants.
The plan is expected to commit up to 6,000 National Guardsmen, including some from non-border states, to work along the 2,000-mile-long border for two years.
The Bush administration, especially in its second term, has been under intense public pressure over illegal immigration.
Out along the dirt roads that parallel the international boundary separating Mexico from the United States, First Sgt. John Rizzo of Team Engineer showed reporters where he and his crews are working on building up dirt roads for Border Patrol vehicles and checking for weak spots in the primary fence, a wall of metal runway mats exposed to salt air from the Pacific Ocean a few miles to the west.
“You need to make sure the welds are holding, the poles aren't falling over,” he said. “It's like owning a car; you've got to keep it up.”
A San Diego mechanic when not in uniform, Rizzo has been working on border improvement missions for the Border Patrol for a decade, back when the terrain was so difficult, it was tricky even for Army bulldozers and graders to maneuver safely.
On Wednesday, however, he looked down over broad, flat Guard-built roads and couldn't help smiling.
“I'm an engineer,” Rizzo said. “I love building stuff.”
Ellsworth emphasized that there were no plans to have Guard troops joining Border Patrol agents in patrolling the international boundary, and that there was little chance of encounters between Guardsmen and illegal immigrants.
“It's a military support to civil authority, principally the Border Patrol,” Ellsworth said. “It's not a militarization of the border.”
Little chance is not the same as no chance, however.
“There's always a remote chance that there could be an encounter,” the colonel said. “Our troops have been advised to break contact (if that happens).”
He said the exception to that rule would be if Guardsman find illegal immigrants injured or in some other type of distress.
“If there's someone who needs help, we will help them,” Ellsworth said.
The other thing that Task Force Vista is not, Ellsworth stressed, is a free ticket out of duty in Iraq.
“If their skills are required, they can be pulled off this mission and deployed,” he said. “They know that.”
Maj. Nick Ducich isn't worried; he's already been there and done that.
“To be able to do a mission like this and be home with your family, it doesn't get any better than that,” he said.
ping
So, 6,000 soldiers of a premier law enforcement group cannot enforce the law?
Next they'll want to make them part of the Peace Corps.
No mention of red carpet layers?
Bush is doing an amazing job.... of not doing his job.
I'd settle for covert law enforcement--just enforce the dang laws, already!
So run away if the illegals fire at them and give assistance if they need it? Sounds very much like the Guard is there to help the illegals, not stop them. This whole sham was an insult from the moment Bush proposed it to appease his angered base. It ain't working Mr. President, and I'm wondering how many islamic terrorists have pranced unmolested through our imaginary 'border' over the past several years?
I didn't know the National Guard was a premier law enforcement group; I always thought they were military.
Exactly what do you call 10,000 Agents apprehending over 1 million illegals each year?
I call that enforcement and it's not the BP's fault they are out numbered.
and those they catch are let go.
If you don't like the law, get Congress to change it.
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