Guard faces tricky dance in California border mission

California Gov. Jerry Brown is crystal clear that his National Guard will help President Trump go after drugs and thugs on the Mexican border, but not immigrants. Drawing that line may be hazy.

Brown’s pledge of 400 troops allows the president to boast that governors in all four border states back his mission to send the Guard on its third largescale deployment since 2006. It helped bring commitments from Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas to about 2,400 troops — above the low end of Trump’s target of sending 2,000 to 4,000 troops to the border shared by the four states.

The Democratic governor, who cast his decision as a welcome infusion of federal support to fight transnational criminal gangs and drug and firearms smugglers, broke from his Republican counterparts from the three other states by insisting that his troops will have nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

But some experts were skeptical that Brown will be able to force his vision of the mission on California’s Guard members participating in Trump’s operation.

“I think it’ll be very difficult for the California National Guard to be able to walk that fine line because those things in the field are indistinguishable, said Eric Olson, deputy director of the Wilson Center’s Latin America program, who specializes in organized crime and security. “It’s not like someone crossing the border says, ‘I’m carrying drugs.’ How can you tell?”

Trump praised Brown on Twitter Thursday, but did not address the governor’s conditions for not taking an immigration role for California troops. The president said Brown was “doing the right thing and sending the National Guard to the Border. Thank you Jerry, good move for the safety of our Country!”

The Border Patrol’s mission of preventing people from entering the U.S. illegally has not changed in its 94-year history. But its nearly 20,000 agents also seize hundreds of tons of marijuana every year, along with other drugs. The agency has also emphasized anti-terrorism efforts since the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

Andrew Selee, president of the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute, said Brown’s move is clearly about how it will be seen politically in a state that overwhelmingly opposes Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The governor, in his decision to let the California troops participate, gave himself “wiggle room” to withdraw the Guard members if they get involved with immigration, which Trump will definitely want to prevent.

“Everyone has an interest in this working out,” Selee said. “The lines will blur a bit but federal and state governments will try to make sure this doesn’t blow up. That doesn’t work for anyone.”