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 Americas & Beyond | June 2008 
U.S. Troops Wind Up Two-Year Stint on Mexico Border
 Tim Gaynor - Reuters
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| | United States Border Patrol agents set out along the border with Mexico. (Reuters) | | |
Yuma, Arizona - U.S. National Guard troops are coming to the end of a temporary deployment on the Mexico border next month, widely credited with helping border police stem the flow of illegal crossers.
President George W. Bush ordered 6,000 troops to the porous southwest border in May 2006 under "Operation Jump Start," a two-year mission to assist the Border Patrol while the government boosted the size of the force.
Guardsmen and women from across the United States took support roles, including spotting for smugglers and illegal immigrants, and building fencing and access roads under the operation, which ends on July 15.
Arrests along the nearly 2,000-mile (3,200-km) international line, one measure of improved security, fell to under 880,000 last year, from almost 1.2 million the year before the operation started.
"It has been extremely effective," said Raymond Crumby, the Border Patrol's field operations supervisor in the Yuma sector, in far west Arizona.
"Just the commencement of the operation had an immediate effect on traffic in the area," he added.
In the Yuma sector, the guard built more than 20 miles (32 km) of vehicle and pedestrian barriers, spotted for illegal incursions, and even helped service patrol vehicles, among other duties, allowing Border Patrol to get back to the border.
Arrests in the sector, where scores of illegal immigrants would sprint over the line in so-called "Banzai Runs" that overwhelmed border police, fell to a current average of 10 a day from more than 380 just before the start of the operation.
"Operation Jump Start was the cornerstone for us," Crumby said, adding that it helped the force to turn a corner and win-back control in the sector.
"It gave us the platform for being able to build on those successes," he said.
PREMATURE WITHDRAWAL?
Sending troops to the line was intended as a stop-gap measure while the Border Patrol boosted numbers to 18,000 agents from levels of around 12,000 two years ago.
The force is now at around 16,500 agents, and the Border Patrol says it is on track to meet their hiring target by the end of the year.
Nevertheless, many in the borderlands are sorry to see the troops go.
The border state governors from California, Arizona and New Mexico wrote to congressional leaders back in April calling for the "highly successful" operation to be extended, warning that any pull out was premature.
The letter, signed by Governors Arnold Schwarzenegger, Janet Napolitano and Bill Richardson, noted that the Border Patrol had not yet met its recruitment goal, and highlighted delays in the implementation of a hi-tech "virtual fence" sought to secure parts of the southwest border.
"It is irresponsible to phase out the current support of the National Guard without the infrastructure and full-time personnel to fill the gap," they cautioned.
In Yuma County, meanwhile, authorities say the operation allowed police to spend less time and resources tackling border-related crimes such as drug trafficking, and rued the guards' redeployment.
"I'd appreciate them staying ... they did a lot of good for us, just their presence," Sheriff Ralph Ogden told Reuters.
"It made it a safer place to be, and it made all our jobs easier."
(Editing by Jackie Frank) |
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