America, Mexico, and an Army of Temps
Well, he did it.
The American President has announced that he wants to deploy National Guard units in southwestern American states to assist in securing the border they share with Mexico.
They won’t actually shoot anyone. They won’t even actually tell anyone to go back across the border. They will be there to handle some administrative efforts, install and maintain some high-tech surveillance equipment, and train the Border Patrol. He was also quick to point out that this is not a militarization of the southern border. It is, rather, a strengthening of the enforcement on that border. Perhaps the best term to apply would be “Police Action”.
I guess you can see where I’m going with this. The last “Police Action” the US began did not end well. It started off as a good idea, and the intent was to promote a secure environment and strengthen a border. How it ended was very different. This latest proposed action could give an entire new meaning to the concept of a project “Going South”.
There is also going to be an unintended consequence, I think. The American President has, for all practical purposes, just announced that National Guard troops from Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California will no longer be deploying overseas, or will at least be doing so in small numbers. This may cause Guard enlistment to rise substantially in those states. But the obverse is also true for the other 46 states. If Guard units are unavailable for deployment from the southwestern states, then they have to be taken from elsewhere.
I have been trying to figure out the reason for this plan ever since I first got wind of it a few days ago. Sending Guard units to the border, two weeks at a time to do administrative and technical work just doesn’t seem to be a reasonable response to understaffed Border patrols on porous borders. By the time they get trained up on local protocols, it’s time for them to be replaced by a fresh set of troops. And if the plan is to only run this process for a year, you don’t even have the advantage of getting a unit through twice.
I figure there are only two reasons he could be trying this. One would be that there is an ulterior motive in play. With Guard troops on the border, a President has the option to put down more troops if the first plan doesn’t have an effect. Too, there is the concept that this is supposed to camouflage the “Guest Worker” program he is trying to push through. And for the truly paranoid among you, it may be an excuse to reinstate the draft a year or so from now. Those reasons sound a bit “out there”, but they are vastly superior to the alternative, which is that he actually believes that this is going to have a noticeable impact on people coming over the border.
Take a look at modern history, and you will find very few countries that were effective at controlling their borders. The Soviets, draconian as they were, couldn’t do it, because the country on the other side of the border was eager to have the new immigrants come over. The US has not been able to do it because their neighbors have been eager to have the new emigrants leave, for the most part.
Honestly, I think the only answer to the American border problem lies in readjusting priorities. As usual, I have a plan.
But that will have to wait for the next entry.