Guard troops boost inspections at ports
Surge in drug trafficking has strained customs staff
NOGALES — National Guard troops deployed to Arizona’s border ports of entry have increased inspections and freed customs officers to tackle a recent rise in drug trafficking, customs officials said.
More than 40 Guard members have spent several weeks assisting U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at the Nogales ports of entry. Smaller teams have been deployed to Douglas and San Luis, as part of Operation Guardian Support.
Guard members staffing the ports have had a more visible role and a better
reception than troops assigned to aid the Border Patrol, which is responsible for securing the areas between the ports of entry. Those Guard members have been criticized, including by the Border Patrol union, for a lack of productivity.
Guard members at the ports are helping customs officers process and inspect commercial trucks and cargo and inspect passenger vehicles. Some of those inspections have netted illegal drugs, Guard officials said.
“If you interdict, like they did last night, a large amount of fentanyl, that’s a success. That’s not in our schools, not in our communities,” said Col. Hoyt Slocum, commander of the operation in Arizona.
The Defense Department has authorized the deployment of 682 Guard members to Arizona’s borderlands. They are funded through September.
As of Wednesday, the National Guard had deployed 495 troops to Arizona’s borderlands, Slocum said, including those supporting Border Patrol stations, where their tasks include fleet repair and video surveillance.
Customs officials see the Guard’s presence helping address the short staffing at Arizona’s ports of entry. There are 250 officer vacancies at the state’s six crossings, including 140 in the Nogales area, Customs and Border Protection said.
At the same time, traffic at the border and drugs seizures at the ports has been increasing in recent years, Customs and Border Protection data show.
Michael Humphries, port director for the three border crossings in the Nogales area, said Guard members have helped facilitate travel by freeing customs officers for other tasks.
It’s difficult to quantify the impact, he said, but it has allowed customs officers to tackle drug trafficking.
“The opioids, the heroin, the fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine, all those are up. Marijuana is down,” Humphries said. “But the hard, dangerous narcotics, we’re seeing more and more significantly over last year.”
Humphries said customs officers in Nogales have seized more than 5,000 pounds of methamphetamine so far this fiscal year. That’s an increase of almost a third compared with the previous fiscal year, he said.
A National Guard representative said additional teams will be deployed by the end of August to help customs officers at three smaller border crossings: Naco, Sasabe and Lukeville.
Slocum said that about 420 of the 495 Guard members now deployed are from Arizona. Others are from Indiana, Missouri, Maine, Iowa and Kentucky, even as some governors have recalled Guard members to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy on illegal crossings and ensuing family separations.
Kimberly Burdick, a member of the Wisconsin National Guard member, has been deployed for three weeks.
She is assigned to help with secondary inspections of passenger vehicles at the Mariposa crossing. She said Guard members are needed at the border.
“We’re doing a good thing here,” she said.