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Schwarzenegger Favors U.S. Marshals Over Guard
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said Tuesday that he has "serious concerns" about President Bush's plan to use 6,000 National Guard troops to help secure the Mexican border. "Securing our borders is a law enforcement function and what we need are more Border Patrol agents, not National Guard troops who are neither trained nor suited for this purpose," Schwarzenegger said in a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. Schwarzenegger also said that assigning Guard units to build fences and deploy surveillance equipment on the border, as Bush plans, would disrupt their training for other missions and take troops who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan away from their families again. He suggested the federal government explore using U.S. marshals, Forest Service officers and other federal law enforcement officers to supplement the Border Patrol instead of calling up National Guard troops.
Story Continues Below Meanwhile Tuesday, senators in Arizona, another border state, passed a sweeping immigration bill that supporters called a needed crackdown on illegal immigration and critics decried as unfair and possibly unnecessary in light of Bush's initiatives. Key elements of the Republican-drafted proposal would pay to send National Guard troops to the border and criminalize illegal immigrants' presence in Arizona.
The measure originated in the state House, which now much consider the changes made by the Senate. From there, the bill faces an uncertain future: Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano has vetoed similar legislation. Arizona is the nation's busiest point for illegal crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border.
© 2006 Associated Press.
Editor's note:
Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics: Inside Cover Stories
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