Border left 'wide open' after red states pull National Guard and police
Category: News & Politics
Via: sister-mary-agnes-ample-bottom • 3 years ago • 35 commentsBy: Anna Giaritelli (MSN)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
MCALLEN, Texas — The swarm of National Guard soldiers and state police that governors sent to guard the Texas-Mexico border earlier this summer are gone, leaving the border effectively unmanned with just 6% of the reinforcements left behind.
"We used to have a National Guard posted there," Border Patrol agent Chris Cabrera told the Washington Examiner while driving along a dirt road that runs parallel with the border near the Hidalgo port of entry late one evening recently. "There was another one right over here, but they took that guy, too."
Cabrera is the vice president of the Border Patrol union's Rio Grande Valley chapter. On a 12-mile drive along roads that agents use to access the overgrown land along the Rio Grande, Cabrera points out a total of 11 spots where National Guard soldiers had been posted all summer. They manned mobile camera towers and could also call in sightings of illegal immigrants or drug smugglers attempting to sneak through the brush.
Now, no one is keeping watch and Cabrera admits that agents, half of whom have been pulled from the field to transport and process illegal crossers in custody, do not even know who is coming through in those unguarded areas. Cabrera described it as "wide open."
"We were already stretched thin with their help and having them here relieved a lot of pressure on us," Cabrera said. "Now they took away manpower that we can't really afford for them to take away."
Reinforcements were called in at the start of summer. In June, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott solicited help from other states to patrol the border as more migrants were coming across than any time in the past two decades. Arkansas and South Dakota sent in state National Guard soldiers, while state troopers were called in from Florida, Iowa, Nebraska, and Ohio.
But four months since Abbott's call for assistance, nearly all have quietly returned home, according to data provided by the Texas Division of Emergency Management and the Texas Military Department. The 48 soldiers from South Dakota were called back. Among the state police, all 14 in Ohio, 26 in Nebraska, 28 in Iowa, and 69 from Florida have been pulled from the line, unable to endlessly work out of state.
Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, a Republican, said on Wednesday that the state could not continue with the costs, while other governors have said their states need law enforcement back in their communities.
As of Friday, just 11 soldiers from outside Texas are the only out-of-state military or law enforcement help Texas has on the border, fewer than a tenth of the personnel who were there this summer.
"They would monitor the mobile center, mobile tower trucks, camera trucks," Cabrera said. "Nobody is bringing those out because they're not there. These were static positions where we would put a vehicle and two guardsmen in there so if somebody ran across that area, they could call it out."
In this part of the Rio Grande Valley, it is common to see Border Patrol agents parked in their vehicles every half a mile to a mile. Just two agents were in the field on patrol in those 12 miles.
Many agents in the field here are assigned to an outdoor processing center under a bridge in Anzalduas Park. Just several dozen feet from the edge of that site, a single woman stood on the dirt road that Cabrera drove down. She approached Cabrera's personal vehicle and said she was from Venezuela, having just crossed the river, and did not know where to go.
Further down Rincon Road, which is known as the dirt highway that migrants who have crossed the Rio Grande will walk down to find agents and surrender or get away, groups of families and single adults walked in from the river. Four Hidalgo County constables were parked at the top of the road ready to direct migrants toward the outdoor processing site, where they would wait for several hours before being transported to a tent facility or Border Patrol station.
One pregnant woman held her belly as she gave her name to one of the constables. Another woman on crutches told the constable she fell while trying to board the infamous "Beast" train in Mexico and the train wheel ran over her lower leg. Her leg was amputated below the knee, but she continued hundreds more miles determined to get to the United States. She is the last one in the group who surrendered and limped on behind the others.
The Rio Grande Valley has seen more illegal immigration encounters over the past decade than any of the eight other regions that the Border Patrol patrols along the 2,000-mile border.
Tags:News, Border, Texas, Immigration, Mexican border, Border Patrol
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It doesn't take much of a stretch to figure out what nightmare will be at the top of Trump's campaign platform.
I didn't see the story so much anti-Trump as what a stooge Biden is. And, why would these 'red' localities want to help him after the sanctuary city and kiddie cages hand that the left played?
This isn't so much about anti-Trump as it is anti-Biden.
Not a damn thing in the thread that even mentions "Trump" - c'mon folks - give it a rest.
Mexican cartel fires a MACHINE GUN across the border into the US with bullets zipping above a National Guard observation post as migrants flood in
As Paul Harvey would say - "And here's the rest of the story". Same location - same news - getting to be pretty damn ridiculous that we, the U.S. citizens, have to put up with the BS that this administration is pulling 'cause they don't give a shyte.
"Oh, no - we gotta have our $5.1T bullshyte budget with all the pork in it. Who needs to take care of the border????"
Really? Someone seeded a conservative article from a right of center news paper to try to blame red states or the past President for? Seriously?
it’s not the red states fault they can’t afford to keep their law enforcement out of state forever doing a job that is a federal responsibility. The last President also had the border well under control when he left office and will get it back that way when he returns.
Define 'well under control' please.
Define "when he returns"!
One thing is for sure and that's this nightmare will be at the top of any Republicans campaign for presidency, and probably a few Democrats as well.
So what exactly did all these red state national guards accomplish? According to the right nothing is being stopped at the border.
Although I like the article I have to disagree that the border will be Trump's campaign issue. His issue in 2024 will be that the election was stolen from him. How do we know this? because he is a lying scumbag of course.
It's not like we don't have enough crime in Florida, but hey send some LEO's to TX.
He certainly waved that banner in 2016. Why wouldn't he do it again?
Inane. I've not seen anyone from the right suggest that the best way to handle the crisis at the border would be to remove personnel. Perhaps these states don't have the budget or need their people back in their states? Either way they shouldn't have to be down here doing the Federal government's job. Nor should the states along the border be absorbing the costs of the lack of control.
Well thankfully, your laser like focus gives me assurance that TRUMP won't make it.
Imo some of the people were sent there for political reasons only.
Imo some of the people were sent there for political reasons only.
Gov. Abbott asked the governors of these states for help. Now, these same governors have decided to withdraw that help and tiptoe out of Texas.
It's political right up to the eyeballs.
Why should red states have to pay for border security when it is the job of the federal government? The states aren't getting reimbursed for the money they are spending; and from the article. Time for the Biden Administration and the Democrats in Congress to "Nut up or shut up" and take full responsibility for what is going on at the Southern Border. I am sure they can spare a trillion to actually fix the border problem they created in their reconciliation bill.
Notice no blue states are sending in their police or National Guard to help out.
It's a matter of priorities. They need these people to surveil pregnant women.
Nothing wrong with multi-tasking.
What I find weird about this article is Cabrera claiming that they are too understaffed to take advantage of technology that they invested in. The CBP got the 28 MILLION they asked for and now Cabrera is saying that they can't manage to man them without outside LEOs or the NG?
Another weird thing is that video camera technology can be quite effective if monitored by a small cadre viewing the live video from a command center. Every airport and casino in America proves that posit. So WHY not augment the autonomous system they already have that is working instead of asking for a system they can't man?
I say surveillance and drones.
The time for cowboys on horseback is over.
In 2020 they heralded the autonomous methods. Now they're all about manned systems. It doesn't make sense.
it's republican political theater for the media.
So only Republicans are concerned about the border?
The CBP has all their personnel tied up running detention processing centers. They can't be in two places at once.
Um, the CBP doesn't run detention processing centers.
Better tell that to the federal government.
In fact, better tell the CBP that they are not in a crisis- because they claim they are.
Or did you think the CBP just handed all illegals immediately off to ICE and DHS?
Gee Ronin, you just block quoted that ICE or HHS does the processing. That refutes your claim. Well done, AGAIN.