Guardsmen at Border Armed, Alert for Aliens

California National Guardsmen, in an escalation of their drug interdiction role along the border with Mexico, have begun carrying weapons and are now reporting the presence of illegal aliens to federal and local law enforcement agencies.

The deployment of unarmed National Guard units at various U.S. ports of entry last month has been widely publicized, but the posting of an unknown number of armed guardsmen in certain border areas has been kept secret for security reasons, guard officials say.

California appears to be the only state bordering Mexico where armed guardsmen have been deployed. Charles Conroy, a U.S. Customs Service spokesman for the region that covers Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, said that only unarmed guardsmen are on border duty in those states.

“There are guardsmen in the southern desert area. They are armed,” said Maj. Michael Ritz, a spokesman for the California National Guard.

Officials also said that the guard units have expanded their original purpose beyond drug interdiction and are now reporting illegal aliens along the border to authorities.

Their weapons, Ritz said, are strictly for self-protection. He said there have been no incidents involving guardsmen. According to a report in the San Diego Union, the guardsmen are armed with M-16s, a military-issue rifle, and are clad in camouflage fatigues.

The office of Gov. George Deukmejian was informed of the present deployment of the guardsmen along the border and approved the plan, said Maj. Michael Ritz, the guard spokesman. The approval of the governor’s office was not needed, Ritz said, as the weapons were provided for “personal protection.”

The plan for the use of the California guardsmen was approved by the National Guard Bureau in Washington, parent body of the guard, a spokesman in Washington said.

The secret armed operation has been under way since early last month, beginning at the same time as the much-publicized posting of unarmed guardsmen to work alongside U.S. Customs Service inspectors at ports of entry in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego. Ritz would not say how long the operation would continue.

Authorities described the armed guardsmen’s role as one of observation, but they have disclosed few details of the operation. More details are expected to be revealed today at a National Guard news conference in Los Alamitos, also to be attended by law enforcement agencies.

Law Limits Role

U.S. law strictly limits the role of guardsmen and other military units in civilian law enforcement, but some lawmakers have attempted to ease the statutes to allow the use of military personnel and equipment in the national anti-drug effort. Reacting to such sentiments, Congress last year allocated $40 million for drug interdiction involvement by the National Guard, including almost $1 million earmarked for the California National Guard. That money is financing the current border efforts, officials said.

All told, between 200 and 300 guardsmen are involved in the various operations in California, said Ritz. The guardsmen do not make arrests, he said, but instead inform law enforcement authorities about suspected infractions.

“If the individual in the field observes something that could possibly be of an illegal nature, the information would be passed on to the appropriate law enforcement agency,” Ritz said.

The armed guard mission, officials said, represents a return of Operation Border Ranger, the anti-drug initiative that began and ended tragically last October, when a guard helicopter on its maiden nighttime surveillance flight crashed into an Imperial County mountainside. Three guardsmen were killed, along with five Southern California sheriff’s deputies, two from Los Angeles County and one each from Imperial, Orange and Riverside counties. That operation had been kept secret until the crash.

Like the earlier initiative, Ritz said that the present operation also involves air support, including the use of helicopters.

Representatives from a number of sheriff’s departments are expected to participate in the new operation, dubbed Border Ranger II, although it was unclear which counties would commit personnel or had already dispatched officers. The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department will not participate for budget reasons, a spokesman said.

While Operation Border Ranger focused solely on drugs, it appears that the guardsmen now on border duty are assisting efforts to cut the flow of hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who enter the United States from Mexico each year.

Robert Moschorak, associate regional commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, confirmed that the guardsmen were passing on details of unauthorized border crossers to authorities. “They have provided eyes and ears,” said Moschorak, who declined to elaborate.

The posting of soldiers, armed or unarmed, is a sensitive issue on the U.S.-Mexico border, where guard deployments have raised fears of a “militarization” of the unique bicultural region. Past proposals to post U.S. troops along the border have provoked outrage in Mexico, where former U.S. military occupations are still bitterly recalled.

The posting of armed National Guard units has already triggered criticism in the border area, although there has been no official reaction from the Mexican government.

“This confirms our worst fears,” said Roberto Martinez, co-chairman of the Coalition for Law and Justice, a rights group. “These people are trained in only one thing, and that’s military force.”

A National Guard spokesman said that the units being used have been specially trained for the interdiction activity, although he would not comment on the extent of training.