Guard may be on border next week

WASHINGTON – The first National Guard troops to help the U.S. Border Patrol stem the flow of illegal immigrants from Mexico could begin work as early as next week, defense officials told Congress on Wednesday.

Teams of about 200 soldiers each will begin planning missions with U.S. Border Patrol and Customs officials as early as June 1, said Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, the National Guard’s top officer.

Bush administration officials have provided a number of details about the border security plan in the past week, but testimony by Blum and other officials before the House Armed Services Committee was some of the most in-depth explanations of how it’s supposed to work.

“This will be a temporary mission, as was airport security after 9/11,” said Blum. “We expect to work ourself out of a job here as quickly as the Border Patrol and Customs, law enforcement agencies and (Department of Homeland Security) are able to assume the mission.”

Blum said teams would be made up of volunteers from California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas who will stay on duty for at least a year to manage other National Guard forces who will work on 21-day rotations.

President Bush announced May 15 that he would send as many as 6,000 National Guardsmen to reinforce U.S. Border Patrol officers along the 2,000-mile-long U.S.-Mexico boundary. The deployment could last as long as two years while the Border Patrol trains 6,000 new officers.

About 10,300 of the agency’s 11,583 officers are stationed along the Mexican border, said David Aguilar, U.S. Border Patrol chief. They’re overtaxed by millions of illegal crossings each year.