Border Authorities Praise Guard Action as It Draws to Close

Federal and local law-enforcement authorities Friday applauded the escalated National Guard involvement in drug enforcement along the the U. S.-Mexico border and at other ports of entry, but officials said the program is being phased out this weekend because funds have run out.

The monthlong initiative, which involved both armed and unarmed guardsmen working alongside civilian law enforcement officers, contributed to almost 500 drug-related arrests and a number of major drug busts, including the seizures of nearly 1,000 pounds of cocaine and more than 2,000 pounds of marijuana, officials said.

‘Operation Was Successful’

“The operation was successful on every measure,” said John E. Hensley, assistant regional commissioner for enforcement for the U. S. Customs Service, the lead agency in the program, at a press conference Friday at the Los Alamitos Armed Forces Reserve Center in Orange County.

Critics have questioned the wisdom of posting U. S. troops--particularly armed soldiers--along the border, a concern heightened by the acknowledgement this week that the guardsmen are also reporting the presence of undocumented immigrants.

California is the first and only state to use armed guardsmen along the border. Unarmed Guard troops have also been assisting customs inspectors in Texas and Arizona, officials said.

But Hensley and other law-enforcement officials downplayed the arming of guardsmen and expressed the hope that the Guard program will be instituted on a permanent basis. Its future depends on the availability of federal money and an evaluation by authorities in Washington.

“As soon as all of the civilian agencies have digested the information obtained as a result of the operation, we will have a better idea whether we need to come back again,” said Maj. Gen. Robert C. Thrasher, who heads the 27,000-member state Guard.

As many as 400 guardsmen participated in the operation. They did not make arrests but reported the presence of suspected lawbreakers to civilian officers, who conducted the seizures and apprehensions. Federal law limits the role of guardsmen and other military units in civilian law enforcement. The weapons were strictly for self protection, authorities said.

The guardsmen’s presence is the most visible manifestation of longtime efforts in Congress to increase military involvement in the anti-drug-trafficking campaign. Congress has appropriated about $40 million for National Guard assistance in the drug war, including about $1 million for California. The Guard has spent $2 million on this effort, half of it from budgeted Guard funds, a spokesman said.

No Shots Fired

Early last month, authorities announced that unarmed guardsmen would be working alongside customs inspectors at ports of entry in Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego.

However, authorities acknowledged this week that an unspecified number of armed guardsmen, equipped with military-issue M-16 rifles, were also based at observation posts along the U. S.-Mexico border from the Pacific to the Arizona-California line. Officials said no shots were fired during the operation and stressed that the weapons were provided strictly for the guardsmen’s protection. Only guardsmen in “isolated” areas were armed, a Guard spokesman said. The guardsmen were equipped with night-vision equipment.

National Guard officials refused to provide any further details about the number of guardsmen at the observation posts or the number of posts, saying they didn’t want drug smugglers to know the extent of Guard activity.

Thrasher, the Guard’s adjutant general, said Gov. George Deukmejian approved the entire plan. “He was aware of all aspects of the program,” Thrasher said.

Apart from drug-related operations, authorities disclosed that the presence of temporary Guard posts had led to the arrests of 327 illegal aliens in the area. The guardsmen informed U. S. immigration authorities of the presence of the undocumented border crossers.

The entire initiative was dubbed Operation Border Ranger II, the rebirth of a joint anti-drug program that ended tragically last October when a Guard helicopter crashed into an Imperial County mountainside, killing three guardsmen and five sheriff’s deputies from throughout Southern California. That program was kept secret until the crash.

Fear of More Involvement

Although authorities stressed that the operation remained principally an anti-drug initiative, alarm was expressed in some quarters that the troops were entangling themselves in immigration-law enforcement.

Some immigrant advocates have expressed fears that the Guard activities could set the stage for more widespread military involvement in border immigration enforcement, possibly leading to confrontations between troops and undocumented border crossers.

Past proposals to post troops along the porous 1,952-mile U. S.-Mexico border have drawn protests in the border region and in Mexico, where the issue of any U. S. military presence along the border is a sensitive one.

“This is very troubling,” Charles Wheeler, director of the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group, said of the Guard’s involvement in reporting illegal aliens. “We consider it unnecessary involvement of military personnel in an area that is really outside of their area of expertise.”

Harold Ezell, Western regional commissioner of the U. S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, called the arrests of illegal aliens a side benefit of the program.

Authorities acknowledged that the Mexican government was not notified of the plan to deploy armed guardsmen. “We felt the operation needed a degree of secrecy, and we kept it secret,” said Henley of the Customs Service.

The secrecy was not meant as an insult to Mexico, officials said.

“There was absolutely no infringement on the sovereignty” of Mexico, Ezell said. “I don’t see this as any kind of a threat to Mexico.”

Also participating in the operation were sheriff’s deputies from five counties: Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Imperial and Riverside. They assisted in drug checkpoints set up at the major interstate highways entering California from Arizona, authorities said. San Diego County sheriff’s officials declined to participate for budgetary reasons, a spokesman said.

As of Friday, officials said, the Guard presence had resulted in 483 drug-related arrests and the seizures of 972 pounds of cocaine, 2,257 pounds of marijuana, 6 pounds of heroin, 66 pounds of steroids, 170 marijuana plants, 24 vehicles, 25 weapons and $102,251 in currency. Most of the drug seizures were in the border area, said authorities, who could not provide a more detailed breakdown.

The number of seizures and arrests was characterized as a substantial increase from the same period a year ago, but no comparative figures were provided.