When Gov. Rick Perry of Texas announced plans to deploy 1,000 National Guard troops to help with the border crisis, it came with a power unexpected by some. By deploying them himself rather than through Washington, he has the power to order the troops to make arrests and apprehensions, something Guard troops in past border deployments have been prohibited from doing.Wait, troops with a lack of federal oversight?! Why, they could run amok!!!! Oh, the humanity!Immigrant rights advocates and others, including former federal officials involved in previous National Guard mobilizations, said the troops would lack both training and federal oversight, creating a risk of civil rights violations and deadly encounters with immigrants.
Let's compress this "argument" to its true form, shall we? Just as the New York Times thinks standard civilians lack the training and certifications to be trusted with a gun, they also think that only Federal Border Patrol Agents have the super-duper training and certification neccessary to be entrusted with the high calling of arresting stupid teenagers crossing the border illegally. Or to put it more bluntly:Critics worry that the Guard will be ill trained to deal with an immigrant population.
"It's going to complicate the scenario of civil and human rights at the border," said Fernando Garcia, executive director of the Border Network for Human Rights. "Border Patrol agents have to go through a number of certifications in academy and post-academy training on immigration law, on civil rights law. Now you're talking about putting in soldiers doing that kind of work. Legally, it's going to be a disaster if they start enforcing criminal, civil or immigration laws."
Mere State level government apparatchiks are stupid as well. They must be controlled.
Only unionized and certified Federal Government Employees are smart enough to manage these highly complex and nuanced issues of people swimming across a river when they aren't supposed to. Because it would be CRAZY to just put the sons of bitches in a boat and ferry them back again, right? That would be nuts!
I think it's a little simpler.
ReplyDeleteIf the Guard were going out to hand out water bottles and shepherd these poor, misunderstood future straight-Democrat-ticket voters into our country, they'd praise them.
They're afraid they might actually do the job the Border Patrol won't, and the presence of troops on the border might even result in a reduction of the two-million-a-year flood of invading wetback colonists. And the idea of actually enforcing our immigration laws, or even paying lip service to them, is something Up With Which They Shall Not Put.