Texas Governor says US should use troops in Mexico drug war

Okay, smart ass, where you going to get the money to build it? And once you spend all your money building it, where are you going to get the money to patrol 1200 miles of it 24/7?

And have you ever seen these guys with a pair of wire or tin snips? I’ve seen Mexican nationals PUT UP a mile of six strand barbed wire fence in less than a day and not even get a scratch. So if you think a wire fence is going to stop them, then you are sorely stupid.

Actually the Israeli fence is not doing so well keeping them out, now is it? A bunch of terrorists got through their fences and slit the throats of two or three kids and their parents and got back out sight unseen. At the same time Palestians were celebrating the murder of 38 other Israeli civilians.

You’ve never lived on that border. I did. We could throw a rock off the porch of our house into the Rio Grande. They flew my children out of there 150 miles to the next living souls to go to school. There was NOTHING and NOBODY between us and that small community with a school to keep somebody, especially a bunch of terrorists from going through a fence.

So please, give me a break. I as well as our Governor Perry knows best how to deal with these people. Boots on the ground.

Using troops to protect the border is unconstitutional?

I believe it is according to the below act.

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385) passed on June 18, 1878, after the end of Reconstruction, with the intention (in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807) of substantially limiting the powers of the federal government to use the military for law enforcement. The Act prohibits members of the Army from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States.

Defending the border is not law enforcement. Sure its been made so but no other country considers it such.

No other country has the Posse Comitatus Act.

The Act prohibits members of the Army from exercising nominally state law enforcement, police, or peace officer powers that maintain “law and order” on non-federal property (states and their counties and municipal divisions) within the United States.

I assume this law would be scrapped if we were attacked by Mexican forces crossing the border. However, the National guard is different story.

I'm not sure what I think about the constitutionality of having federal troops defend the border.

I do know there are precedents. The first name on the killed-in-action memorial in Clovis, New Mexico, was a local soldier from Clovis who was killed in the punitive expedition against Pancho Villa when he crossed the border and attacked two small American towns.

Personally I'd be much more comfortable with the Texas National Guard and the National Guards from New Mexico and Arizona doing border patrols, both from a pragmatic perspective and as a matter of principle. If necessary, use federal money to pay local troops under state control, just as we did with using state highway departments to build the interstate expressway system which, by the way, was originally conceived as a military mobility project.

Getting troops to volunteer for a call-up who speak at least passable Spanish should be easy in those states, and in a lot of cases it will be possible to get locals who know the area well and can work in terrain (or at least climates) that are in their comfort zones.

I realize the large border crossings in California are a different problem. While Texas can probably equip and train the troops needed to deal with major issues at its border crossings, I'm less comfortable in California's ability (or more importantly, willingness) to do so.

That's where the system breaks down. I have little doubt that Texas and Arizona would gladly take federal money to mobilize and train Guardsmen for border patrols. New Mexico would probably do it if the money came from federal sources. But what if California doesn't want its National Guard to patrol the border of a state that doesn't want patrols? I don't like the logic of where that leads.

CORRECTION TO LAST SENTENCE:

I wrote “But what if California doesn’t want its National Guard to patrol the border of a state that doesn’t want patrols? I don’t like the logic of where that leads.”

What I meant to say was this: “But what if California doesn’t want its National Guard to do that work? Do we send federal troops to patrol the border of a state that doesn’t want patrols? I don’t like the logic of where that leads.”

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