U.S. Border Patrol agent/supervisor James Jacques wears a black band across his badge to honor two colleagues who died in a roll-over accident while on patrol looking for people crossing the U.S.-Mexican border illegally.
“Without having eyes on our border, we can’t get boots on the ground. The work [the Indiana National Guardsmen] are doing, it’s immeasurable,” Jacques said.
The Indiana Guard deployed 180 troops in January to the San Diego area to help alleviate problems the Border Patrol battles: washed-out, dirt roads; people crossing illegally en masse; and destroyed fence that serves as a vehicle barricade.
The troops returned home from their mission Friday.
Border patrol agents are kept busy along this often-treacherous, rugged terrain where some 300 illegal crossings occur in California each month, Jacques said.
In March, six men who crossed the border illegally were located with a vehicle X-ray machine and apprehended. When the men showed identification, four of them presented jail identification, Jacques said.
Indiana National Guardsmen stood 15 feet away and provided agents with backup support.
“All that toughness [of immigrants] just sort of disintegrated,” Jacques said. “Just their presence — you don’t mess with the National Guard.”
In another situation last month, Indiana Guard members located seven people who crossed the border. Four or five of them, Jacques said, had prior felony convictions and had returned illegally to the United States after deportation.
“Without the Guard being there,” he said, “they would have slipped through the cracks.”
The Border Patrol has established identification sites where agents constantly patrol in four-wheel drive vehicles such as Jeep Wranglers and Ford F-350s. Agents often sit in these vehicles at a designated spot, spread apart one-fourth mile from other agents, all while visually scanning entry areas.
While on deployment along the border, the Guard provided air support, vehicle support, built roads and drainage culverts, erected lights to illuminate the area at night and refurbished the 16-feet-high, steel fence while erecting a secondary fence on American soil.
“The more you bring to the table, the more you can take away,” Jacques said.
Terre Haute Police Chief George Ralston visited Tecate, Calif., an area about 60 miles southeast of San Diego along the border.
Ralston participated in a weeklong military excursion, called a “boss lift,” to San Diego, which was hosted by the Department of Defense’s Indiana Committee for Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve.
“The boss lift shed more light on what those guys are doing,” Ralston said. “It helps me out to know what they’re doing, because police work is very stressful work. If you’re part of the Guard or Reserve, it can also be very stressful.”
While there, he gained knowledge of what Guardsmen and Reservists sometimes experience while on military orders.
Ralston said the U.S. southern border is vulnerable. Border Patrol agents make 140,000 arrests yearly and apprehended one man 17 times.
Ralston believes that without the Guard and Reserve, the job would be unmanageable.
“They provide a great service to our country,” he said. “In my opinion, the Border Patrol was undermanned. With the Guard there, they were able to provide extra eyes.”
The steel fence lining the border, made from recycled steel that was used by the military for makeshift runways in the Vietnam War, is one-eighth of an inch thick. The fence stops sporadically, in which case 5-inch, rusty drill pipe and railroad rails serve as the vehicle barricade, separating the United States from Mexico.
In some areas a fence does not exist, and people could easily walk across illegally.
Indiana Guard crews repaired areas in the existing fence, or the “primary fence,” and are building a “secondary fence.”
The new fence will serve as an additional vehicle barricade and will be constructed of chain-link fencing with barbed wire atop.
Each fence will be separated by a two-lane dirt road, and different countries.
On the Mexican side of the fence sits Tecate, a town of about 60,000 residents. The sound of mufflers buzzing as cars accelerate could be heard from across the border. Brightly-colored houses are packed tightly together.
On the north side of the steel wall is undeveloped, barren, U.S. land without a house in sight. The sole signs of civilization are military work crews and the Border Patrol.
Excavators equipped with bulldozer blades lined the road as an occasional soldier would whip by in a water truck spraying the road to keep dust down and compact the dirt.
“The Guard’s mission and what they’re doing down there,” Ralston said, “they’re fixing the whole country. They ought to be commended for the work they did.”
Laura Followell can be reached at (812) 231-4253 or laura.followell@tribstar.com.
Local & Bistate
Guard helping alleviate problems the Border Patrol battles
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