Posted on 09/06/2010 8:50:24 AM PDT by SandRat
NOGALES, Ariz. —Members of the military are trained for combat, not civilian law enforcement. But Thomas Perez, the Justice Department’s top civil rights prosecutor, says the deployment of more than 500 National Guard troops to the border shouldn’t worry residents.
“I think people will find that a lot of the National Guard troops that are coming to the border are actually involved in law enforcement in their day job,” Perez told the Nogales International during a stop in Tucson last week.
“So they’re very well trained at understanding the issues that are involved in policing in any community.”
But nongovernmental civil rights advocates like Gustavo Lozano point to cases like that of Ezequiel Hernandez, an 18-year-old shepherd killed by U.S. Marines patrolling the Texas-Mexico border in 1997, as examples of the pitfalls of placing the military on the border.
“Every time they deploy more troops, they say they’re just going to be in support roles, or they’re going to be unarmed, and there’s going to be no threat to border communities,” said Lozano, who heads the Nogales-based group Fronteras Desiguales. “But what we experience is a totally different situation.”
The first group of approximately 30 Guard troops took up positions along the state’s border with Sonora last week, and in all, 504 Guardsmen will be deployed in the field in the coming weeks, Border Patrol spokesman Eric Cantu said.
“As far as them being involved and dealing with the public, that’s not going to happen because they’re in a support role only,” he said.
“They’re not there to enforce any laws, they’re not there to make any apprehensions or any interdictions; they are there on a strictly support-role basis only.”
Even so, Cantu said, all troops will receive training that addresses potential human interactions. And Perez said he’s confident about that training.
“I think there’s been great attention paid to ensuring that the Guard troops that are deployed are going to be ready and able to deal with the challenges of policing,” Perez said.
“Training is key. Whether it’s Border Patrol agents coming out of the academy, or whether it’s Guard troops that are being deployed, we will continue to take aggressive measures to ensure that they are indeed properly trained and able to play a constructive role. I’m confident they can.”
‘False dichotomy’
In general, Perez said he sees no inherent conflict between the unprecedented security buildup along the border and the protection of civil rights.
“There’s often this false dynamic, or false dichotomy that people put forth, which is that you can either have border security or you protect people’s constitutional rights. And I categorically reject that false premise,” he said. “We can have aggressive border security measures, and we scan protect the Constitution and ensure compliance with civil rights.”
But Lozano said the buildup — which he terms the “militarization” of the border — creates a climate in which law enforcement becomes more aggressive, and in which abuses can more easily occur.
As evidence, he points to a June 1 incident in which U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers near San Diego killed an uncooperative detainee with Tasers.
The addition of National Guard troops to the already volatile mix creates even more risk, he said, not just for undocumented immigrants, but also for Latino residents of border communities who get profiled as wrongdoers.
“Sending troops doesn’t help,” he said, “and it criminalizes all of us Latinos here.”
When your country is invaded, it becomes combat, not law enforcement!
I suspect that actual Border Control might be more like the projection of combat power.
This guy’s mindset is something to see. The only thing the law-abiding people of Arizona have to “worry about” is that the feds didn’t sent enough National Guard troops, and that they are not adequately armed.
>“I think people will find that a lot of the National Guard troops that are coming to the border are actually involved in law enforcement in their day job,
Uh, so what?
My perspective is that they do not belong there outside of a real and valid state of emergency declared by the president himself.
This of course, presupposes that Hussein is interested in admitting that the invasion of our country is in progress, let alone being remotely interested in stopping it.
The Guard would be better served in the stationing of their various contingents in order to defend the Constitution and the Country against it’s domestic enemies that reside on Pennsylvania Avenue.
Congress needs to DEMAND—not ask—that the resident PINO order the SECDEF to deploy the U.S. Army along the southern border to combat and put to an end USING ANY MEANS AT ITS DISPOSAL the wholesale invasion of the United States by Mexican nationals, militarily-provisioned narcotics cartels, and nationals from foreign terrorist cells using Mexico as a staging ground, that is occurring with disgraceful regularity.
The U.S. Army has as its FIRST OBLIGATION the defense of this nation. It is UNTRUE and a MEDIA MYTH and an ELITIST PLOY—subscribed to even by the current Joint Chiefs of Staff—that this responsibility rests solely with the national guard of the respective states directly affected by invasion orchestrated by a foreign country.
Why does the U.S. Army brass not want to take on the responsibility of defending the nation? Because the SECDEF told it to shut up and go away, which in current parlance means being deployed overseas somewhere in the service of another nation, such as Korea or Afghanistan. That’s much more important dontcha’ know, than the sovereignty of the U.S.
Why is the Congress more concerned militarily about defending South Korea from invasion by North Korea than it is about defending the sovereignty of the United States from a combined narco-terrorist territorial invasion by Mexico?
An area over one hundred miles deep (north of Arizona’s southern border) spreading east to west across the state is now actively under the military control of Mexican drug cartels who have their own standing military almost as well-equipped as ours. This puts heavily-armed narco-terrorists less than 30 miles away from the nearest American city.
Posse Comitatus, which stupid liberal college professors love to throw around as the reason why the U.S. is “not permitted” to constitutionally defend itself militarily on its own soil (give me a BREAK) speaks ONLY to prohibiting the use of the U.S. military in domestic law enforcement issues.
It has NOTHING to do with deploying the U.S. military to defend against an invasion by a foreign entity. Foreign invasion is NOT a domestic law enforcement issue! Indeed to defend against foreign invasion was the original purpose for the creation of the U.S. Army!
The United States is the ONLY COUNTRY ON EARTH with an army whose top command takes it as a matter of principle that its primary objective is NOT to defend the borders of its own country!
Think about that!
What the hell has happened to the U.S. Congress?
Why does it not begin to do its job and demand an accounting as to why the resident PINO and the SECDEF are mute with their respective panties twisted into knots in the face of an out-of-control border and an active ongoing foreign military occupation of a one hundred-mile-deep segment of the State of Arizona!
And why a rogue U.S. Department of Justice, headed by a rogue AGINO, at the behest of the resident PINO, has chosen instead to SUE the State of Arizona for attempting to defend itself, a step Arizona has been forced to take only because the resident PINO has abjectly abdicated a very real constitutional mandate to provide that defense?
Has anyone in Congress Democrat or Republicasn condemned this baseless cowardly action by the AGINO and the PINO? Is this the same U.S. Congress that rose to its feet and applauded President Calderon of Mexico, when he stood before it and said that the law passed in Arizona was a slap in the face to Mexico? To Mexico?
Is there NO ONE left in Congress prepared to demand that our laws be carried out, the constitution respected, and our nation’s sovereignty be restored?
Have all of our representatives had their wallets stuffed and their hearts, souls, and minds destroyed? Were there any representatives who did NOT stand up and applaud when Calderon trashed the U.S.in his address to Congress?
Has anyone in Congress considered the extremely adverse effect the video of Calderon’s address to the U.S. Congress, and its rising en masse to applaud his slap in the face to U.S. sovereignty, will have on someone like Hugo Chavez? Or on a massive Middle-East al-Jazeera audience? It would utterly transform any relations the U.S. has with other countries, friend OR foe. It is the U.S.Congress wallowing for all the world to see in self-loathing. In self-hate.
If the entire U.S. Congress has been bought and paid for by the NAFTA/GATT/Soros/Gates/Jobs/Jamie Dimon/EU/Saudi Oil globalistas, then so has the November ballot box. Look at it this way. We all know what time it really is. The question is: Does anybody really care?
See more at:
http://www.g2mil.com/border.htm
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