I spent half of last week with the Tucson-based No More Deaths in Nogales, Sonora, and I was suprised to see National Guard humvees and tents nestled into the hills next to border fencing and ports of entry. From everything that I had heard from and read in the media, the National Guard troops were deployed to the border in a strictly supportive role. They would build and maintain roads, map what poorly-charted terrain, and take part in behind-the-scenes operational activities--filing paperwork, monitoring border sensors, etc. This was all well and good from a public relations standpoint, but it didn't explain the presence of heavy-duty war-time vehicles and camouflaged troops just yards away from the border itself. "A crock of bullshit," I thought to myself.
I called up the Tucson-sector Border Patrol, and they connected me with Major Fay Ludens, a public information officer with the Army National Guard. She told me that a number of deployments have come to the border as "rotational staff". Troops from Arizona and New York left after three-week stints, while others from Virgina and Kentucky will be in the Tucson sector for weeks still.
The Virginia deployment, I wasn't suprised to find, is operating in "entry identification teams"--four person units that are the "eyes and ears for the Border Patrol," said Ludens. They sit on the border in strategic areas and call up B.P. agents when they see people crossing. "They are strictly in a support role," Ludens reiterated.
Unfortunately, that's not what I heard from migrants as they were returned to the Mexican side of the line. One group was quite adamant that they were detained by National Guard troops. The would-be migrants said that the troops came across their group in the early morning, corraled them, and had them in their custody for fifteen minutes before Border Patrol agents arrived. When asked if the detainers might have been BORSTAR operatives--a search and rescue contingent of the Border Patrol that, in their camouflaged uniforms, might be mistaken for soldiers--one individual said that they clearly identified themselves as National Guard troops.
Although the group didn't report any particular instances of abuse while in the soldiers' detention, one major abuse remains clear: if the story checks out, National Guard troops violated the law.
The Posse Comitamus Act of 18-- makes it unlawful for military personnel to actively police within the domestic United States. If the National Guard the migrants into custody within our borders, they would have acted in direct conflict with that law. Such an act would demonstrate complete disregard for the Constitutional rights extended to all people within the United States--citizens, undocumented migrants or otherwise.
Whether or not the National Guard detained the migrants without legal authorization, the character behind police-state enforcement tactics is pervasive. I relayed this story to a No More Deaths volunteer. "So, the National Guard troops are just like the Minutemen," he said. "They watch and wait for people to come across, and they call Border Patrol whenever they spot someone." "Yeah," I replied, and then I cringed. In my
personal experience, I've observed Minutemen detain not only migrants but also journalists and hikers. I've watched them assume and abuse rights that are not theirs. I've seen how the media reports them, I know their rhetoric, and I can testify that what they say and what is said about them only infrequently matches up with the reality of their behavior.
For this reason, I am wholly concerned about the National Guard troops on the border. If the troops received an executive order to carry out similar functions for another three years, as I was told by a reporter who spoke with the head of the Kentucky National Guard, the possibility that abuses will occur is greatly enhanced. In any case, their presence is now status quo.
