Border states to Obama: Send in the Guard!
By: Barbara Hollingsworth
Local Opinion Editor
04/28/10 1:18 PM EDT
Seventeen members of Congress representing southwestern states sent a letter to President Obama today requesting that the commander-in-chief immediately deploy the National Guard along the Mexican border. Because the governors of Arizona and Texas have already requested it, they say, no legislation is required. The president “could do it today,” Rep. Ted Poe, R-TX, pointed out.
The signatories are also asking President Obama to specify new rules of engagement. National Guard troops “should be able to defend themselves if fired upon,” Poe told reporters at a press conference outside the Capitol. “In the first two months of this year, attacks on the Border Patrol in the Tuscon Sector have increased 200 percent. This country does more to protect the borders of other nations than we do to protect our own borders.”
Last time the Guard was sent, they were unarmed and used only as backup support for Border Patrol agents. This time, says Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-AZ, who also signed the letter, the Guard needs to be deployed “on our border, not 50 miles back.” Recent increases in Border Patrol agents and other enforcement improvements are not enough, Giffords told reporters. “Last year, 240,000 individuals were apprehended” in Arizona – and those were just the ones that got caught.
Rep. Poe showed reporters photos of a Russian-made Mexican military helicopter that had ventured over the U.S. border and a Border Patrol vehicle retrofitted with wire cages to protect agents inside from rock-throwing illegals. “If somebody in D.C. started throwing rocks at the local police, they would go to jail,” Poe said. When illegal immigrants do it, they go on welfare.
Rep. Ed Royce, R-CA, also contradicted Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, the former governor of Arizona, who told Congress on Tuesday that the southern border “is as secure as it ever has been.”
“The Secretary is wrong,” Rep Royce said, pointing out that there were over 1,000 attacks on Border Patrol agents last year. “The situation is actually spinning out of control. There’s a breakdown of the rule of law. Organized crime controls both sides of the border.”
So that’s what Napolitano means by “secure”- drug cartels are secure in the knowledge that they can pretty much enter the U.S. at will.
Border Security Letter to Obama
Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com |
