"Are 6000+ troops assigned to border duty or not?"
"Yes...the article is quite clear in its explanation.
Many troops are on the border, looking for illegal crossers. Many troops are sitting in Border Patrol stations doing admin duties in order to free up BP agents to go to the border and look for illegal crossers.
AFAIC, boots is boots and bodies is bodies. The number of people deployed to the SW Border States has increased by more than 6,000 and the number of people actually on the border has increased."
Laughing myself silly.
"The Bush administration has fallen well short of its goal of having 6,000 National Guardsmen along the Mexican border by the end of July."