State volunteers border force

Governor says he can send 100 from Guard to bolster patrol effort

By TRAVIS LOLLER
and KATE HOWARD
Staff Writers

Gov. Phil Bredesen has offered 100 troops to help stop illegal immigration on the Mexican border and says the number may increase in coming weeks.

Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Bredesen said a number of Tennessee National Guard troops had volunteered to help with President Bush's plan to use 6,000 troops to improve border security.

"We've offered to send 100 troops to the border, if they'd like to deploy them, and we also have offered a number of specialists who might not be appropriate for the border but might be appropriate to help with the effort in Washington when it comes to border security."

The National Guard Bureau, which coordinates funding and missions for state Guard units nationwide, has not requested Tennessee troops for the effort, Tennessee National Guard spokesman Randy Harris said on Wednesday.

Guard Bureau spokeswoman Kristine Munn said that about 1,100 National Guard troops were supporting U.S. Customs and Border Protection and that the bureau hoped to increase that number to 2,500 by June 30.

Initially, most of the troops will come from the border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.

Other states will be asked to send troops during what is expected to be a two-year effort to stop illegal immigration from Mexico while the U.S. Customs is hiring and training new officers, she said.

Any troops that Tennessee sends to the border probably will be volunteers who will serve two- and three-week stints as part of their annual training, Harris said. He did not know when troops might be sent.

Stephen Fotopulos, policy director for the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said the organization did not support militarizing the border because it simply throws money and effort at a failed immigration-control policy.

"In the last 20 years, the budget (for border patrol) has increased by a factor of 10 … and the number of border agents has quadrupled, but unauthorized migration has continued to increase."

Theresa Harmon, co-founder of Tennesseans for Responsible Immigration Policy, said that sending 100 troops to the border sounded like a good idea. "If every state in the Union stepped up, think of what that would do. Even if they're not acting in an enforcement role, it would be a huge deterrent."

Bredesen is seeking re-election and already has the support of many Republicans. His support of immigration enforcement could appeal to conservatives, said Mark Byrnes, a political science professor at Middle Tennessee State University.

"A hundred troops is more than a token, but it's not a mammoth expenditure of state resources. It's a way to send a message that it's an issue he cares about."

Posting Tennessee soldiers near the border puts Bredesen in the thick of an immigration debate that he's mainly stayed out of, but still with a very moderate stance, Byrnes said.

That is a smart political move, according to Vanderbilt University professor Christian Grose, because Bredesen will have to get into the debate eventually.

He'd probably be asked for troops eventually, so he's just gotten ahead of the game, Grose said, and in the process is reaching the voters who care most about the issue.

"We do have a decent number of liberals in Tennessee, but he will gain a lot more with other voters. This issue tends to be more important to conservative or swing voters than liberal voters." •