Guard may be used on U.S. border

WASHINGTON – President Bush is expected to announce plans Monday to send thousands of National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border to help stop illegal immigration.

Details were still under discussion at the White House on Friday evening, but administration officials said Bush was considering deploying at least several thousand troops as part of a broader effort to beef up border security. The president will outline his plans on Monday night in a prime time TV address to the nation.

The speech is timed to influence Senate debate next week on legislation to overhaul immigration laws. Bush will prod lawmakers to come up with a plan that combines tougher enforcement with a new guest-worker program that would give legal status to millions of undocumented workers.

A senior administration official, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the still-evolving White House plan, said that Bush would propose ways to plug security gaps until thousands of new border patrol agents can be hired and trained.

The Senate bill calls for hiring 4,000 additional border patrol agents and 10,000 more immigration enforcement officers over the next five years.

The White House plan is to use National Guard troops, contract workers or local law enforcement officials in support jobs so that border patrol agents can focus on apprehending illegal immigrants.

The official disputed speculation that Bush would call for the deployment of 10,000 soldiers.

“The numbers are fluid right now. It will be in the thousands, but not that high,” the official said. “There’s a lot of different ways they can help without having to do the actual apprehension.”

A Pentagon official confirmed that the military had been asked to begin drawing up options for the use of National Guard troops. But the official said that the scope of the mission or the number of troops required hadn’t been defined.

According to the National Guard Bureau in Washington, D.C., National Guard troops have been used on the border with Mexico in recent years primarily for anti-drug missions.

The use of troops on the border is a sensitive issue for a host of reasons.

Federal law prohibits the military from performing law enforcement duties. Critics of the idea worry that putting armed troops on the border increases the risk of violent confrontations with heavily armed drug traffickers or with immigrants. Some military units already help with border surveillance.

In 1997, a U.S. Marine patrol assisting with border surveillance near Redford, Texas, shot and killed 18-year-old Ezequiel Hernandez, a goat herder. The Marines said Hernandez fired at them, and the corporal who pulled the trigger wasn’t charged with a crime.

For Mexico, the presence of U.S. troops is likely to evoke memories of the U.S. Army’s incursions into Mexico from 1916-19, when Gen. John J. Pershing’s troops and other U.S. military units roamed the country in search of Pancho Villa.

Asked for comment, Carolina Diaz, the director of international information for Mexican President Vicente Fox, said: “President Fox is on an official visit to Europe. He’s at a summit of Latin American countries in Austria … He will wait until Monday to see exactly what President Bush proposes. Until then, there won’t be any official comment.”

Some U.S. officials questioned the wisdom of giving another assignment to National Guard units that have been stretched thin by repeated deployments to Iraq.

National Guard troops normally serve under the command of state governors, but the president can press them into federal service when needed.

Since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, hundreds of thousands of National Guardsmen have been activated for duty in Iraq, Afghanistan and in homeland security missions.

“The Bush administration and the federal government should put up the money to create the kind of protection that the federal government is responsible to provide, not use our National Guard soldiers that are coming back from Iraq,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.

Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, called the National Guard proposal “cheap political theater” in an interview with CNN.

But Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, the chairman of Senate subcommittees that oversee immigration and border security, said the manpower and equipment that the National Guard could offer is needed immediately.

“The truth is, we must use all available federal assets to secure our borders,” Cornyn said. “Ground sensors, UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) and other assets and technologies are needed now, and should be deployed as quickly possible.”

The effort to boost security at the border could help Bush sell Congress his plan for a temporary-worker program for undocumented immigrants already in the United States.

Legislation in the Senate would provide more than 300,000 guest worker visas annually and would permit illegal workers who have been in the United States for more than five years to get on a path to legal status.

But that plan faces still opposition in the House of Representatives, which passed its own version in December that emphasized security, including a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border.

The Senate is scheduled to debate its version of the bill starting Monday under an agreement reached this week by Democratic and Republican leaders.