Trump’s border plan not first of its kind

Directive that would add 4,000 troops is similar to operations under Bush, Obama

SAN ANTONIO — A border plan now being hammered out by the Trump administration and National Guard is likely to create a force of up to 4,000 troops in four states and seems a direct descendant of a pair of operations launched by Democratic and Republican presidents.

Operation Jump Start, ordered in 2006 by President George W. Bush, sent 6,000 troops to California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Four years later, President Barack Obama dispatched 1,200 soldiers and airmen to the same border states.

Both were crafted with state governors and conformed with federal legislation limiting the role of federal military forces in domestic law enforcement, ensuring that troops wouldn’t make arrests or conduct searches. Observers familiar with that history think the new operation won’t stray from the old guidelines.

“It would be seriously foolish to try and do that, I think, because you’re inviting a litigation hurricane,” said Geoffrey Corn, a retired Army attorney and professor at South Texas College of Law in Houston. “You’re just asking for litigation trouble, and we know how that’s gone for this administration with the immigration ban.”

Trump’s troop figure, given days ago aboard Air Force One, is far below the 100,000 troops floated last year in an administration plan. Corn noted that the president did not actually “order” those guardsmen to the border, instead phrasing it as a request. Trump asked that the troops fall under control of each state’s governor, avoiding the need to call them into federal service, a rarely used presidential authority.

The Department of Homeland Security spent much of last week discussing the size and scope of the guard mission with the governors involved. A senior Pentagon official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Homeland Security would identify specific needs and each guard organization’s capabilities to support it. Texas, New Mexico and Arizona so far have agreed to send troops, with the Austinbased guard announcing its plans to send additional soldiers and airmen to the border late Friday.

California’s governor, ardent Trump foe Jerry Brown, has yet to say if he’ll support the new initiative. That state’s counter-drug program utilizes 250 guardsmen across the state, 55 of them on the

border. They perform surveillance support at San Diego Harbor, repair roads, fences and culverts, and do criminal analysis with state and federal law enforcement, said Lt. Col. Thomas Keegan, a guard spokesman.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat who sits on the Homeland Security and Defense subcommittee, called for an examination of the administration’s plan. He added, “It appears that the administration’s ‘solutions’ to secure the border have been reactive and unsuitable to the issues at hand.”

The latest operation has its origins in comments Trump made last Tuesday at the White House. Apparently surprising Pentagon and DHS officials, he said that he’d send “the military” to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The president called it “a big step,” adding, “We really haven’t done that before — certainly not very much before.” The Pentagon, Department of Homeland Security and Texas National Guard couldn’t clarify immediately afterward if he meant activeduty forces, generally forbidden from enforcing federal and state law, or the National Guard, which has provided border security for years.

Operation Jump Start was launched by Bush to help undermanned federal authorities. The next year, then-Gov. Rick Perry dispatched 604 Texas Guard troops to the Rio Grande in an operation that involved 6,800 people, with personnel also coming from scores of police and sheriffs’ departments and the Texas Department of Public Safety, among other agencies.

Obama’s Operation Phalanx moved helicopters, surveillance and communications equipment to assist the Mexican military and law enforcement, and shifted personnel from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to support a crackdown on gun smuggling into Mexico. About 1,200 National Guard troops also supported the mission.

Perry’s successor, Gov. Greg Abbott, has continued to employ Texas Guard troops along the border. Abbott’s “Operation Secure Texas” now has 100 volunteer soldiers and airmen there under strict rules of engagement. The Guard’s Lt. Col. Travis Walters has said the Texans serve in “observer-reporter roles” but on Friday didn’t rule out the possibility that could change for the new mission as talks continue with DHS. He said that “with the consent of the governor, we will move forward with whatever missions that they deem as needed to move forward.”