Texas National Guard troops scheduled to spend year in Valley
EDINBURG — The Rio Grande Valley Sector of U.S. Border Patrol announced Thursday that the Texas National Guard will deploy agents to the Valley by the end of this month.
The Valley’s Border Patrol division is expecting about 286 troops, acting Chief Patrol Agent Ricardo Aguirre said during a news conference Thursday at the agency’s Rio Grande Valley Sector Headquarters.
Currently, the troops are being trained at Camp Swift in Bastrop County, east of Austin. They will be used in the Valley to assist Border Patrol agents in securing the U.S.-Mexico border. Some troops will also be responsible for information analysis, including helping to monitor surveillance cameras Border Patrol has set up and watching the movement of suspected undocumented immigrants.
“That will allow me to put a green shirt back in the field,” Aguirre said, referring to the ability of Border Patrol agents to focus on patrol duties as the Guard troops play a support role.
Aguirre also said Border Patrol needs to recruit about 1,000 additional agents this year. The assistance from the National Guard will also free up agency resources that can be devoted to actively recruiting and training those new agents.
The Guard troops are scheduled to remain in the Valley for about a year, Aguirre said.
The Rio Grande Valley Sector plans to have an open house 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sept. 18 in an effort to recruit new agents. The sector headquarters is located at 4400 S. Expressway 281, Edinburg.
“Here in the Valley,” Aguirre said, “we could use all the help we can get.”
The deployment of National Guard troops to the Valley is part of a much larger contingent being dispatched to support border security operations along the nation’s Southwest border.
More than 28,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence in Mexico since President Felipe Calderón launched a crackdown on his nation’s criminal organizations in December 2006. He has dispatched thousands of military personnel and federal police along the border in a bid to maintain order.
President Barack Obama, responding to growing concerns in the U.S. about the violence, is sending a total of 1,200 National Guard troops to secure the border and urged Congress to pass a historic border security bill.
The bill signed by Obama last month funds 1,000 new Border Patrol agents, about 250 more Customs and Border Protection officers and development of new Border Patrol bases and tactical communications systems.
The measure also included $32 million for two additional unmanned aerial surveillance systems, bringing the total number for the border to nine once the new drones go online in 2012.
One of those Predator B planes began patrols Wednesday along Texas’ coastal area and border with Mexico.
But U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said this week that that the Obama administration must take further steps to secure the state’s border.
“We want immediate resources and attention to the growing security crisis along our southern border,” he said in a statement. “I will continue to press the Department of Homeland Security to devote additional Predators to cover the Texas border, and pursue additional ways to achieve real border security.”
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Monitor staff writer Jared Janes contributed to this report
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