Plans for National Guard on border await administration approval

Houston Chronicle:

The Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security are finalizing plans to station National Guard troops along the Mexican border, most likely as backup support to local law enforcement personnel in Texas and other border states.

Four border-state governors, including Texas’ Rick Perry, have provided input, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told reporters Tuesday.

The final decision on whether to implement the plans is in the hands of White House officials, she said.

Napolitano said that the White House decision-making process “is not by any stretch final” but that “most of the planning process has been done.”

Newly appointed border czar Alan Bersin told the Houston Chronicle that any National Guard troops deployed to the southwestern border, from California to Texas, would be used “in support of law enforcement.”

Duties include helping to staff checkpoints targeting vehicles suspected of ferrying firearms or cash drug proceeds from the United States into Mexico.

“Every time you have (National Guard) support at the border, you’re plussing up law enforcement,” he said.

Guard troops would help “in the support capacity, not doing the searches,” he said.

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While checking on money and contraband heading for Mexico is important, it would be a bigger help for Mexico if we were able to stop the drug shipments into the US that generate the profits. We know that Juarez and Tijuana are the primary gateways into the US and it makes sense to concentrate force around their cross border areas to cordon off and check for shipments of drugs. This would make these two cities less desirable for the criminal insurgents in Mexico.