Bredesen considers sending Guard to patrol border
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As part of a national address earlier this month, Bush outlined his plan for curbing illegal immigration, pledging to gain control of the border and give up to 12 million illegal immigrants a chance at citizenship.
Bredesen said Thursday that a number of National Guard members have privately expressed to him interest in assisting Bush’s plan.
“The immigration issue is fundamentally a federal issue,” he said. “But the federal government has said that they may have to call on the national guard to give some help in securing the border. I just sent a letter to (Maj. Gen. Gus) Hargett to ask him to formally consider whether or not having a volunteer program would make sense in our National Guard.”
Bush has proposed deploying 6,000 troops at a time to the border in two-week rotations. The deployments would be temporary, he said, until enough Border Patrol agents were hired to secure the mission. He asked Congress to add 6,000 more Border Patrol agents by the end of his presidency.
In memo sent a few days later to Guard leaders, the Pentagon elaborated on the plan by stating that units would remain in a “federally funded” mission for “up to one year, with a force reduction to 3,000 during the second year.”
The memo said the Guard units’ missions will focus on “surveillance, reconnaissance, aviation, intelligence, engineering, training, vehicle dismantling, linguistics … transportation and logistics.”
They will not be asked to perform law-enforcement functions, but rather provide “vetted and pre-coordinated support to law enforcement.”
“I am prepared to issue a call for volunteers for such a mission, if you believe our current troop strength can sustain it and if the National Guard Bureau actually needs Tennessee’s help,” Bredesen wrote in his letter to Hargett.