State Guard Plans Larger Role in Drug War : Narcotics: California soldiers expect more U.S. money for the interdiction effort. But immigrant advocates say aliens’ rights along the U.S.-Mexico border could be violated.

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 illegal drugs being smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

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

However, this year’s $10 million is five times larger than what was available last year.

“This will be a larger operation than last year,” said Maj. 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 would not make arrests, officials said, but would solely report 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 growing pressure on the Pentagon to increase its involvement in the nation’s battle against drugs. For the current fiscal year, the Department of Defense received about $450 million for drug-interdiction support, including Guard efforts, an overall one-third increase over the previous year.

The $10 million anticipated 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.

The deployment of troops along the U.S.-Mexico border has drawn criticism both from the Mexican government, which views such actions as threatening, and from immigrant representatives concerned about a possible increase in rights abuses along 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 officials said Guard observations last year also resulted in the arrests of several hundred undocumented immigrants. The border is crossed each night by hundreds of foreigners without papers. It is also a primary entry point for illegal drugs.

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

The $10 million is the most that the California Guard has ever been allocated for drug-fighting purposes and is expected to last much longer than the monthlong Guard involvement last May and June that involved more than 600 guardsmen. 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’s anti-drug effort at the border in California began with Operation Border Ranger in 1988, but that program ended tragically when a Guard helicopter crashed into a mountain in Imperial County. Three guardsmen and five sheriff’s deputies from throughout Southern California were killed in the crash.

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 shortly.

Ritz said that the “primary thrust” of the operation would be along California’s 150-mile border with Mexico. But guardsmen also are 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. “Any manpower they can give us is helpful to us,” Miller said.