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Thanks again, dear reader, for another delightful surprise. The last day of June was our busiest day of site traffic. No the raw numbers are not astounding, but we like the trend. So thanks, and many happy returns.–gm

Joining the Patrol
Border agency, recruits both face hurdles in training

Susan Carroll
Republic Tucson Bureau
Jul. 1, 2006 12:00 AM

ARTESIA, N.M. – Susana Morales squinted through the sight of a U.S. Border Patrol-issued automatic rifle for the first time as the heat rose up in shimmering waves from the shooting range.

The young mother, one of about 570 cadets in the Border Patrol’s academy in Artesia, is an ideal applicant: minority, female and former military.
The academy is in the midst of a massive hiring push to meet President Bush’s mandate to put 6,000 new agents in the field by 2008. About 2,500 of those agents will be sent to Arizona’s border with Mexico.

The Border Patrol faces several challenges at its only training base. The number of new hires is unprecedented, and critics have expressed concern about the agency’s capability to properly train and screen applicants. The agency also has a high dropout rate, with only one in 30 applicants making it through the 19-week training course, the longest law enforcement preparation school in the federal government.

The academy was moved to this small town in southern New Mexico from centers in Georgia and South Carolina in 2004 and has several major construction projects under way as it is pressured to get agents into the field.

On the shooting range, Yuma native Morales, 27, squeezed off five rounds, grazing the lower left and right of the target and hitting once dead in the center.

Like many new recruits, Morales thought about quitting the academy and going home to her 4-year-old, who kept asking when Mommy was coming home.

“It was much harder than I expected,” she said of the academy just days from graduation, “But I’m happy that I stayed.”

Major growth

The Border Patrol has ramped up staffing since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, growing into one of the largest federal law enforcement agencies in the country. Fifteen years ago, the agency had about 4,000 agents. Now, the ranks have swollen to more than 11,780.

With national attention focused on illegal immigration, President Bush in May announced plans to add 6,000 agents during the next two years. The push is already under way, with the agency projecting 9.3 percent growth by the end of the fiscal year in October, said Maria Valencia, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman.

Border Patrol officials said consolidating the training at one facility would be more efficient. They also said the terrain and climate in New Mexico was more in line with the type of environment agents would face along the Southwestern border.

But Border Patrol officials are struggling to accommodate the volume of recruits in Artesia, a town of about 15,000 people roughly 240 miles southeast of Albuquerque. Federal officials have built temporary housing while a $38 million barracks facility is under construction, and they are working on expanding the gym and building an indoor pool.

Charles C. Whitmire, acting chief patrol agent at the academy, said that the growth is a challenge but that officials will be able to accommodate all the recruits sent their way to meet the goal of 6,000 new hires.

“It’s a huge ramp-up that will take a huge amount of money, effort and time,” he said. “We’re breaking new ground here. We’ve never trained this many agents.”

Recruiting push

The agency also has launched a major recruitment campaign, focusing on the North and Midwest. They raised the age limit for applicants to 40 from 37 and are heavily targeting former military personnel, Supervisory Agent Lorenzo Hernandez said.

Officials also are carefully orchestrating a media campaign, opening up the academy to controlled tours to get the message out about the need for more agents.

During an earlier hiring boom in the mid-’90s, the Border Patrol had a series of embarrassing cases of hiring agents with questionable backgrounds, including criminal records. Despite recent reports of corruption, including the suspected involvement of a former Arizona agent in an FBI cocaine sting, officials said they have improved the background-check process and will thoroughly vet new recruits.

Hernandez, a recruiter, said getting a diverse mix of applicants is “the toughest challenge by far.” Although the agency does well recruiting bilingual Hispanics – just over half are Latino -less than 1 percent of the workforce is Black or Asian. Only about 5 percent are women.

Morales said the decision to sign up for the patrol wasn’t easy. Her husband had argued that a Border Patrol job, which involves logging long hours in dangerous terrain, was no place for a woman. But, she said, he eventually came around and is proud of her. She had heard of Hispanic agents facing a backlash for going into the Border Patrol but hasn’t seen that firsthand, she said.

“To me, it’s just a job,” she said, “And it’s a job that has to be done.”

Staying on

The Border Patrol historically has struggled to retain agents. Some have complained about the starting pay, about $30,000 to $34,000, depending on experience. The job is demanding and sometimes frustrating, with some agents reporting sitting in fixed positions for hours at a stretch or catching the same undocumented immigrants over and over again.

The attrition rate in 2004 was 6 percent, but dropped to 4 percent in 2005. Valencia said officials are projecting a 5.25 percent loss this year.

“The biggest trick is going to be, ‘How are you going to hang onto people?’ ” said T.J. Bonner, president of the National Border Patrol Council, the uni*n that represents field agents across the country.

Morales, who spent five years in the Navy before joining the Transportation Security Administration, said she was drawn to the Border Patrol because it was an outdoor job, promising a “little more excitement.”

She struggled through the physical portion of the academy, saying it was tougher than boot camp. When she arrived, she was far from making the cutoff for the physical requirements. Agents are required to run 1.5 miles in 13 minutes. She initially came in more than 3 minutes over, but left 20 pounds lighter, making the time with 12 seconds to spare.

Her first day on the job in the agency’s bustling Tucson Sector is scheduled for Thursday. She said she was looking forward to a short break before starting the job, to have some time with her son.

“I just kept saying, ‘I can do this,’ ” she said, with a broad smile. “And I did.”

Ky. Guard will assist on border

By Tom Loftus
The Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. — About 665 members of the Kentucky National Guard will go to Arizona for three-week hitches starting this month to build roads and fences and monitor the Mexican border, state officials said yesterday.
Kentucky is responding to President Bush’s request in May that states provide up to 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the border with Mexico.

Yesterday’s announcement came as nearly 500 guardsmen prepare to leave Kentucky for missions in Iraq. With the Arizona deployment, nearly 1,800 members of the Guard will be out of state through Aug. 19, said Kentucky Adjutant General Donald Storm.

But Storm said enough guardsmen remain in Kentucky to respond to emergencies and other duties.

“We’re more than prepared and fully equipped to handle anything that happens here at home,” Storm told reporters.

Sgt. 1st Class Darold Riley, 43, of McLean County, said he is excited about the mission.

“It gets us involved in things we’ve been trained to do in the past,” Riley said. “If you don’t throw a real mission in at times, troops can start losing interest.”

Riley said his wife, Lannette, was relieved to learn his deployment would be brief — and to Arizona rather than overseas.

“Spouses and families have come to expect word of a deployment at any time, so when they get word of a mission such as this that’s only 21 days instead of 365 they sort of wipe their brow,” he said.
Guard ‘is always willing’

Storm said all states have been asked to participate, although they are not required to do so. But he said Kentucky volunteered. “The Kentucky National Guard is always willing — and will continue to respond to — our nation’s call,” he said.

He said he wants to see other states do their part.

“Everybody needs to participate,” Storm said. “We’ve got 54 states and territories. I’ll be frank with you. We want to get in this early and get through.”

Yesterday, on the deadline to have 2,500 troops along the Mexican border, the National Guard said that only 483 were in position and working with the Border Patrol as the Bush administration had directed.

But Guard officials said more than 2,000 others were somewhere inside the four southwestern border states, training or helping plan the deployment. Bush administration officials argued yesterday that the presence of troops in those states spelled success in the first stage of the mission.

Bush’s plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But so far only six states other than the four that share the border with Mexico have signed commitments to send troops — Kentucky, Arkansas, Delaware, Montana, Tennessee and Wisconsin.

Storm said the Kentucky Guard has 7,944 soldiers and airmen. The most deployed at one time in recent years was 3,000 near the beginning of the war in Iraq, he said. For the foreseeable future he expects no more than 1,800 Kentucky guardsmen to be deployed at one time, he said.

Impact called minimal

Most of the Kentucky guardsmen going to Arizona will be sent there on dates when they had been scheduled for two weeks of annual training.

“So the impact on families and employers will be minimized,” Storm said.

The Kentucky units will be in Arizona between July 8 and Aug. 19. The federal government will pay the cost of the deployment, Storm said.

Storm said Kentucky engineer units are likely to be asked to build some fences and roads. Other units will monitor the border from observation posts.

But the guardsmen will not be authorized to make arrests, he said. “The Border Patrol will be the only personnel that will take people into custody.”

He said: “Our main mission in Kentucky is engineering assets and engineering tasks. The other mission will be setting up initial entry teams, which is nothing more than running observation points and reporting back to the Border Patrol what we observed.”

Riley, a father of six, said he’s not concerned about the danger of the border assignment.

“There’s always that possibility any time you’re sitting out where people aren’t used to seeing troops, but compared to other missions it’s not a great concern,” he said. “I told my 7-year-old boy I was going on vacation. He asked if he could go with me.”

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Forbes
Associated Press
States Pledge More National Guard Troops
By AARON C. DAVIS , 06.30.2006, 09:10 PM

On the deadline to have 2,500 troops along the Mexican border, the National Guard said Friday that only 483 were in position and working with the U.S. Border Patrol as the Bush administration had directed.

But Guard officials said more than 2,000 others were somewhere inside the four southwestern border states, training or helping plan the deployment. He and Bush administration officials argued Friday that the presence of troops in those states spelled success in the first stage of the mission.
Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, had promised June 1 that by the end of the month 2,500 Guard troops would be working “on the border.”

“As defined by the operation, the National Guard has met and exceeded its goal of deploying 2,500 soldiers and airmen to the four Southwest border states,” said White House spokesman Blain Rethmeier. “Progress to date is real and the Guard’s efforts are making a positive difference in this national effort.”

As evidence, he said the early arrival of troops had allowed the Border Patrol to send 125 agents “back to the front lines,” and helped the Border Patrol catch nearly 200 illegal immigrants, seize 123 pounds of marijuana, 18 pounds of cocaine and seven vehicles.

Through initial pay requests filed with the Air Guard and orders filed with the Army Guard, the Guard bureau verified 2,547 troops were in the four border states for the mission, said Daniel Donohue, a spokesman for the National Guard Bureau.

Only 483 were physically on the border, he conceded.

The remaining forces – 1,816 – are in training somewhere in the four states; 248 are assigned to headquarters and planning roles, Donohue said.

Asked to clarify, Blum spokesman Mark Allen responded by e-mail that the general had never specifically promised to deliver troops to a “geographically defined latitude and longitude.”

Still, there were signs the deployment was picking up speed.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry said 1,000 Army and Air National Guardsmen were either on the border or “on their way,” adding 500 to totals released Thursday. But his office said the additional troops didn’t actually reach the border, but were considered deployed when they left Friday for two weeks of training.

Several states whose Guard leaders and governors had been contacted by the National Guard Bureau in the last 48 hours also made announcements Friday that they would send troops.

Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina said he would reluctantly deploy 300 troops to the border in mid-July.

“I would prefer not to have any of the North Carolina National Guard deployed to other states at this time,” he said. “However, the Guard units in the western states are spread thin as they battle raging wildfires. We must all step up and do our part to keep our country safe.”

Kentucky announced it would send up to 650 National Guard troops. Arkansas also said it would send 200. New Jersey also said it would send up to 650 for three-week assignments.

Damon Foreman, senior patrol agent and spokesman for the Border Patrol in San Diego, said agents there eagerly await the Guard’s help.

“We would welcome all the help we could get. We could absorb them as fast as we could give them instructions on what to do,” Foreman said, adding that the delayed deployment, however, had not affected operations.

“We’ve been doing a considerably effective job for a long time now, we’ll keep doing our job whether the whole number of Guard show up tomorrow, a week from tomorrow, or a month from now.”

Bush’s plan for stemming illegal immigration by using National Guardsmen in a support role called for 2,500 troops to be on the border by June 30, and 6,000 by the end of July.

Bush had said the mission would free up thousands of officers now on other duties to actively patrol the border. Guardsmen are expected to build fences, conduct routine surveillance and take care of other administrative duties for the border patrol.

Copyright 2006 Associated Press.

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This ABC version is different in helpful ways:

SACRAMENTO, June 30, 2006 – The Bush administration has been unable to muster even half the 2,500 National Guardsmen it planned to have on the Mexican border by the end of June, officials in the border states said.

As of Thursday, the next-to-last day of the month, fewer than 1,000 troops were in place, according to military officials in Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona. The head of the National Guard Bureau disputed that tally and said the goal would be met by Friday.

President Bush’s plan called for all 50 states to send troops. But only 10 states – including the four border states – have signed commitments.

Some state officials have argued that they cannot free up Guardsmen because of flooding in the East, wildfires in the West or the prospect of hurricanes in the South.

“It’s not a combat priority. It is a volunteer mission,” said Kristine Munn, spokeswoman for the National Guard Bureau, an arm of the Pentagon, “so it’s a question of balancing the needs of the Border Patrol with the needs of 54 states and territories, and all those balls roll in different directions.”

Bush’s plan called for 2,500 troops to be on the border in support roles by June 30, and 6,000 by the end of July. But officials in the border states said the Guard won’t reach the 2,500 target until early to mid-July and will likely need longer to meet the 6,000 mark.

“The magical numbers coming out of Washington are not going to happen, definitely not by Friday,” said Maj. Paul Ellis, a spokesman for the Arizona National Guard.

A White House spokesman declined to comment, referring questions to the National Guard Bureau.

Later Thursday, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau in Washington, issued a statement saying that the Guard “will have 2,500 Army and Air National Guard members supporting Operation Jump Start in the four border states,” by Friday.

“Reports to the contrary are factually incorrect and ill-informed,” his statement said.

Blum’s spokesman, Daniel Donohue, said he could not account for the state reports about the lagging numbers. He suggested Guardsmen serving in support roles, such as cooks and others, may have been overlooked.

Lower troop numbers and gaps in deployments could mean fewer Border Patrol officers will be able to focus on catching illegal immigrants as planned. Bush had said the mission would free up thousands of officers now on other duties to actively patrol the border. Guardsmen are expected to build fences, conduct routine surveillance and take care of other administrative duties for the border patrol.

Munn said nearly 1,800 troops were committed to the mission. But Guard officials from California to Texas said more than half have yet to reach the border. At least 600 are weeks away from getting there.

Only six non-border states – Arkansas, Delaware, Kentucky, Montana, Tennessee and Wisconsin – have officially joined the mission.

In recent days West Virginia, New Jersey, North Carolina and Arkansas pledged troops, but many of those would not arrive until sometime next month, said Tom Koch, a New Mexico National Guard spokesman. On Thursday, Virginia announced that about 350 National Guard members had volunteered. Friday morning North Carolina sent 300 troops to the border.

Major problems began to appear last week when California, which has already committed to sending 1,000 troops, said it turned down an administration request for 1,500 more to cover expected shortfalls in the numbers sent by Arizona and New Mexico.

Gov. A
rn
old Schwarzenegger’s spokesman, Adam Mendelsohn, said the state is leading all others in contributing troops and the shortfalls are not California’s responsibility.

“The governor is prepared to do whatever it takes to secure California’s border,” he said, “However, at the start of fire season, we cannot send troops to New Mexico and Arizona and other states when we already have 1,000 troops committed to this.”

Associated Press writers April Castro in Austin, Texas, Sue Holmes in Albuquerque, N.M., Arthur Rotstein in Tucson, Ariz., and Michael Felberbaum in Richmond, Va., contributed to this report.