Sunday, May 14, 2006

Using the National Guard as an auxiliary arm to the Border Patrol

To support Border Patrol operations in the the southern states bordering Mexico, President Bush will call on the National Guard to deploy as many as 10,000 guardsmen. The White House intends to use the National Guard in a support capacity and only as long as it takes for the Border Patrol to boost its ranks.
Even though there is nothing sinister in the use of the National Guard as a police force, one has only to think of any other countries out there which use their military to police their citizens. While those countries may have such use for their military it must be noted that it only takes one act of violence for the military to use its heavy hand. What is disturbing is the fact that the National Guard will be under federal control and not under that of the respective border states.
Consider the use of Federal forces during the Restoration, which used a heavy hand to subdue the then Confederate states. This is definitely something the state of Texas especially has a long memory of. For that reason alone Congress passed the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, to remove and prohibit federal troops from acting as national police force.
Nevertheless times have changed and the Posse Comitatus Act has been obsolete ever since the war on drugs began when Navy, Air Force, Special Ops, and Coast Guard units were and still are used in the fight against drug traficking.
But the implications are clear. If we begin to use the military to supplement our national and state law enforcment in fighting illegal immigration, which by the way can be dealt with in a more subtle way through legislation, where will militry involvement stop?


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