The San Diego Sector Border Patrol announced the arrival of 108 California National Guardsmen. The troops were deployed to support President Donald Trump’s Operation Guardian effort to provide additional security along the southwestern border with Mexico.
“National Guard units are a tremendous force multiplier and will assist the Border Patrol in providing valuable logistical and administrative support,” San Diego Sector Chief Rodney S. Scott said in a written statement. “This support will be an immediate, short-term measure that enables Border Patrol agents to return to the border; increasing national security.”
Border Patrol officials said the California Guardsmen, under the direction of Governor Jerry Brown, will report to their stations throughout the sector. The guardsmen recently completed training to detail their assigned duties. Officials emphasized these duties allow Border Patrol agents who are on “NON LAW ENFORCEMENT” assignments to return to the front line and provide additional efforts to secure the border.
Officials said that, unlike some other states, California Guardsmen will not be armed, the Desert Sun reported.
“The support of the National Guard will allow Border Patrol agents on detailed assignments to return to the field to focus their law enforcement efforts on securing the border by preventing terrorists and their weapons from entering the United States between official U.S. Customs and Border Protection ports of entry,” Border Patrol officials stated.
El Centro Sector Cheif Patrol Agent Gloria I. Chavez also welcomed guardsmen. The sector chief stressed the California National Guard members will not perform a law enforcement function. El Centro officials told the guardsmen if they see illegal activity they can report it to Border Patrol agents just like any other citizen.
“It will always be a Border Patrol agent making an arrest,” Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David Kim said. “There’s no direct contact with the National Guard and anybody that may be committing a crime.”
Following President Trump’s callout of the National Guard to deploy to the southwestern border, Governor Brown accepted the request and pledged to send up to 400 of his state’s guardsmen to the border, Breitbart California’s Michelle Moons reported in April.
In a letter to the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, Brown wrote:
Your funding for new staffing will allow the Guard to do what it does best: support operations targeting transnational criminal gangs, human traffickers and illegal firearm and drug smugglers along the border, the coast and throughout the state. Combating these criminal threats are priorities for all Americans – Republicans and Democrats. That’s why the state and the Guard have long supported this important work and agreed to similar targeted assistance in 2006 under President Bush and in 2010 under President Obama.
But let’s be crystal clear on the scope of this mission. This will not be a mission to build a new wall. It will not be a mission to round up women and children or detain people escaping violence and seeking a better life. And the California National Guard will not be enforcing federal immigration laws.
This is not the first deployment of the Golden State’s national guard to the border, officials stated. The California Guard worked with Border Patrol officials in 2006 and 2010 under Operation Jump Start and Operation Phalanx.
The California guardsmen join hundreds of other members of the national guard deployed by Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and other supporting states.
Bob Price serves as associate editor and senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas. He is a founding member of the Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX, GAB, and Facebook.