State Guard Maps Its Largest War on Border Drugs

The California National Guard, expecting $10 million in federal drug-fighting assistance, plans to embark this year on its most wide-ranging effort ever to interdict illicit drugs being smuggled into the United States across the U.S.-Mexico border.

The initiative, officials say, will basically duplicate last year’s much-publicized Guard program, dubbed Operation Border Ranger II, which involved two principal aspects: The posting of unarmed guardsmen to assist in inspections at commercial ports of entry, including the huge Otay Mesa one in San Diego, and the deployment of armed Guard officers at observation posts set up along the border.

However, this year’s effort is expected to be far more extensive; the $10 million is five times what was available last year.

“This will be a larger operation than last year,” said Major Michael Ritz, a spokesman in Sacramento for the 26,000-member state Guard. Ritz said it could be months before he knows when the Guard units will be deployed.

The Guard troops will not make arrests, officials said, but will confine themselves to reporting the presence of suspected traffickers or contraband to accompanying federal and local law enforcement officers. U.S. law restricts military involvement in law enforcement.

The heightened Guard presence in the drug fight along the border is one manifestation of ever-increasing pressures on the Pentagon to increase its involvement in the nation’s war on drugs. For the current fiscal year, the Department of Defense received about $450 million for drug-interdiction support, including Guard efforts, an overall increase of one-third over the previous year.

The deployment of troops along the U.S.-Mexico border has drawn criticism both from Mexican government officials, who view such actions as threatening, and from immigrant representatives concerned about a possible increase in rights abuses in the already charged atmosphere of the heavily traversed border zone.

“It concerns me that there’s going to be this new troop movement of people who are not skilled or trained to identify whether people are here lawfully or not,” said Charles Wheeler, director for the National Center for Immigrants’ Rights, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group. “We don’t want to get people down there who are going to act like John Wayne.”

The guardsmen’s mission will be to crack down on drug trafficking, but their observations last year also resulted in the arrests of several hundred undocumented immigrants, officials said. The border is nightly crossed by hundreds of foreigners without papers. It is also a primary entry point for illicit drugs.

As in 1989, the U.S. Customs Service will probably be the lead agency in the California operation this year, but U.S. immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies will likely be involved also, said Major Ritz, the Guard spokesman.

The $10 million is the most that the California Guard has ever been allocated for fighting drugs and is expected to last much longer than the monthlong guard involvement during May-June of 1989. Last year’s program, involving more than 600 guardsmen, cost about $2 million, Ritz said. Law enforcement authorities lauded last year’s efforts, which they said contributed to almost 500 drug-related arrests and a number of major drug busts.

The Guard anti-drug effort at California’s border began with Operation Border Ranger in 1988, but that program ended tragically when a Guard helicopter crashed into an Imperial County mountainside, killing three guardsmen and five sheriff’s deputies from throughout Southern California.

Guard officials have declined to release specific plans for this year until they have received the $10 million, which Ritz said should be in hand in a few days. Gov. George Deukmejian mentioned the funding level during his state-of-the-state message Tuesday. The governor’s office has approved the guard’s plans, the guard spokesman said.

Although guardsmen may be posted throughout the state in efforts to assist local law enforcement, Ritz said a primary thrust of the operation will be along California’s 150-mile border with Mexico. Guardsmen are also expected to be deployed at a number of seaports, such as Long Beach, San Diego and Oakland, where they would work alongside customs officials inspecting arriving goods.

John Miller, a spokesman at the U.S. customs regional office in Los Angeles, said the Guard assistance would be welcomed, although specific plans were not yet available.

“Any manpower they can give us is helpful to us,” Miller said.

The $10 million expected by the California Guard is part of almost $70 million in U.S. Department of Defense drug-fighting money being spread among Guard units nationwide during the current fiscal year. Texas, which also shares a large land border with Mexico, received the largest share, about $11 million. California was second and Florida received the next largest amount, more than $6 million.