By Jim Geraghty
Thursday, July 08, 2021
Over at the NBC News website, Hayes Brown fumes that “Trump’s border security theater hasn’t ended — it’s gotten
worse. Now GOP governors are sending National Guard members to Texas and
Arizona as political props.”
First, it’s amazing that former president Donald Trump is
managing to “worsen” “border security theater” almost six months after leaving
office. Trump no longer holds any authority over any portion of the military,
U.S. National Guard, or Border Patrol officers or policies. If he did, things
would be quite different.
Nine paragraphs into his argument, Brown gets around to
mentioning the fact that on May 12, the Department of Homeland Security
requested that the Defense Department “extend DoD support to Customs and Border
Protection into fiscal year 2022.” The Department of Homeland Security, headed
by Biden’s appointed secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, doesn’t see the mission as
using those troops as political props. Nor does defense secretary Lloyd Austin;
a few days ago, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said that Austin had approved extending the use of up to 3,000 DOD
personnel to support the Southwest-border mission into the next fiscal year.
And as for the notion that it is GOP governors who are
sending National Guard members to Texas and Arizona as political props,” this
morning brings word that “approximately 125 soldiers from the Wisconsin Army National
Guard will mobilize this fall for a year-long deployment to the
southwest U.S. border. The 229th Engineer Company from Prairie du Chien and
Richland Center is going there as part of a federal deployment. They’re
assisting with what Guard officials are calling ‘non-law enforcement
activities’ assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection.” There is little
reason to think that Democratic Wisconsin governor Tony Evers would be
interested in having his state’s National Guard troops assist in “border
security theater” and be used as “political props.”
Brown charges that the National Guard deployments just
represent governors maneuvering for the 2024 Republican presidential
nomination: “Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem are
likely to be campaigning for the GOP nomination for president in 2024, you can
bet these token deployments will play a big part in campaign ads and stump
speeches.”
Except . . . Ohio governor Mike DeWine, nobody’s idea of
a frothing-at-the-mouth xenophobe and a guy with no indication of any interest
in running for president in 2024, announced that 185 members of the Ohio Army National Guard will be
deployed to help Customs and Border Protection. North Dakota’s GOP governor
Doug Burgham is sending 125 soldiers from a Bismarck-based National Guard unit. Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson is sending 40 members
of his state’s National Guard. Clearly, it isn’t just presidential ambition
that is spurring governors to send their National Guard troops to assist in
border-patrol efforts.
Despite the insistence of Brown and other progressives,
there’s a bipartisan recognition that the waves of migrants coming across the
border represent a security problem, and the U.S. National Guard can play a
role in mitigating the serious challenges there. This is not “militarizing” our
southern border, this is not combat, and this is not a posse
comitatus situation. The National Guard units are mostly watching monitors and
scopes, as Texas Public Radio detailed:
In a darkened room inside the
McAllen border patrol station, a couple of National Guard troops are bathed in
violet glare. Ahead of them is a wall of screens, each displaying camera feeds
from different parts of the border.
Machines beep intermittently and
fuzzy radio transmissions echo throughout the room.
Using motion sensors and control
towers, the Guard can see vehicles, terrain and occasionally people. Every so
often, they spot something suspicious, like someone hauling drug bundles or
trying to cross the border illegally. Then they’ll report it to the border
patrol.
. . . Along the border itself,
National Guard personnel also operate scope trucks — pickups with raised
cameras in their beds — used to monitor border activity. Aside from manning
those trucks in high-traffic areas, they also clear roads for the border
patrol, help fix their equipment and perform administrative tasks.
Of course, information such as this doesn’t fit the
narrative of big, bad, scary Republican governors sending the military to the
border in a frenzy of xenophobic rage.
In a few days, we will get the numbers for how many
migrants CBP caught at the Southwest border in June. It may not be as high as May’s 180,000, but it will be
high. Yesterday, CBP announced that:
Sunday morning, McAllen Border
Patrol Station (MCS) agents encountered 90 migrants after they illegally
entered the United States through Hidalgo, Texas. Within minutes, 28 more
subjects entered behind them. The group of 118 migrants consisted of 75 family
members, 15 unaccompanied children, and 28 single adults. The migrants are from
Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua.
Yesterday evening, MCS agents
working near Mission, Texas, observed a large group of migrants illegally enter
the United States. Agents apprehended 115 migrants and identified 68 as family
members, 40 as unaccompanied children, and 7 as single adults. The migrants are
citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Ecuador.
Hours later, Rio Grande City Border
Patrol Station agents were processing a Salvadoran national when they
discovered he is a Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gang member. He was apprehended
shortly after illegally entering the United States in Roma, Texas. A short
while later, MCS agents working in Hidalgo, Texas, apprehended a group of 89
migrants, mainly composed of families. Agents processing the migrants,
identified a male Salvadoran national as a Mara Salvatrucha gang member.
Coast Guard riverine units
patrolling near Mission, Texas, encountered a raft with nine subjects,
including a 9-month-old infant and two unaccompanied children, being pushed off
the Mexican riverbank by smugglers. The raft was partially deflated and
immediately began to submerge under water. Having no life jackets or oars, the
migrants began yelling for help. The Coast Guard crewmen were able to safely
pull them onto their vessel. The migrants were turned over to the McAllen
Border Patrol Station agents. The migrants were assessed and did not require
any medical treatment.
Yesterday evening, a female migrant
ran towards McAllen Border Patrol Station agents and claimed she just escaped
from her attacker. The female Honduran national entered the country illegally
with her husband and young child. The brush guide separated the woman from her
family and told them to hide in a different area. When alone with the female,
the brush guide forced her to the ground and tore her pants and shirt. The
woman began yelling and fighting back and was able to escape and find her
husband. The female was medically assessed and taken into Border Patrol
custody. An investigation with local law enforcement officials was initiated.
The suspect was not located.
Additionally, 70 subjects were
discovered inside a commercial tractor trailer at the Falfurrias Border Patrol
Checkpoint.
And that’s just on the border in Texas this past weekend.
The National Media Start to Notice That Biden Doesn’t
Really Do Much
It’s a rather funny start to Politico’s
Playbook newsletter, which notes that Biden has spoken about the Delta variant
and the infrastructure plan, and is scheduled to receive updates on Afghanistan
and Russian cyber-attacks. Politico asks, “Across all four issues, one question hangs over Biden: Is he
doing enough?”
If you feel the need to ask that question, that answers
the question, doesn’t it?
But hey, that latest ransomware attack could have been
anyone! “Cybersecurity researchers have discovered that the malware that
delivered the REvil ransomware on thousands of computers managed by Kaseya VSA,
was designed to avoid infecting computers in countries which are the principal members
of the Commonwealth of Independent States” — that is, Russia and the countries
that made up the former Soviet Union.
When we see headlines such as, “Could Ransomware Become a Geopolitical Weapon?” doesn’t it
seem like it is one already?
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