Second Thoughts on Pulling the Guard From the Border

From The New York Times:

Soon [2,600 members] of the National Guard in Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas where they are helping to secure the border with Mexico as part of a two-year mission called Operation Jump Start.

Phased down from a peak of more than 6,000 Guard members, the mission is scheduled to end July 15, although a smattering of Guard personnel are expected to remain or return as part of longstanding cooperation with the Border Patrol.

Here, they have built or shored up roads to give federal agents speedier access to the hilly and rocky terrain. They have fixed trucks and monitored cameras and sensors and stood guard in the wilderness, facilitating thousands of arrests by directing agents to illegal border crossers.

But just as Guard members pack up and bid farewell to the desert, an effort is intensifying to have them stay put. The Border Patrol has given the Guard credit for helping to deter and detect illegal crossings, so much so that the governors of the four border states and federal lawmakers now wonder aloud, Why stop now?

[Gov. Janet Napolitano, Democrat of Arizona, and the other governors say the Guard should stay while the Border Patrol continues a hiring frenzy toward meeting a goal of about 18,000 agents by the end of the year, double its size from 2001. It now stands at 16,471, about 5,000 more than two years ago, and the governors, as well as members of Congress, have expressed doubt that the agency will put enough agents in the field to meet its target.

[T]he much-anticipated virtual fence, a suite of cameras, radars and other technology intended to enhance around-the-clock surveillance of the border, has been plagued with delays and glitches, although domestic security officials say it is getting back on track.