- (Note - The financial damage to America's infrastructure
done by the estimated 15 million invading illegal Latin American aliens
is estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars, or more. Why aren't
Guard troops being deployed, en masse, to the Mexican border? -ed)
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- WASHINGTON - At least 700
National Guardsmen will be dispatched to the nation's sprawling northern
border as federal authorities scramble to plug holes in the administration's
homeland-defense plan.
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- The troops would immediately triple the number of Border
Patrol officers assigned to the 4,000-mile border with Canada, long regarded
as one of the nation's most vulnerable points of entry.
Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Senate subcommittee on Thursday that
the troops would arrive within the next two weeks and stay for an initial
period of 179 days, according to an agreement between the departments of
Justice and Defense.
''We have been keenly aware of the threats that exist,'' Ashcroft told
Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash. Murray had complained that no additional personnel
had arrived as promised two months ago.
Concerns about the security of the northern border have deepened since
the terrorist attacks Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Earlier this month, the Justice Department's inspector general found that
''many (border) stations still cannot operate 24 hours a day, seven days
a week'' because of acute staffing shortages.
''This understaffing continues to offer an avenue for aliens, criminals
and terrorists to enter the United States illegally,'' Justice investigators
wrote earlier this month in their most recent evaluation of northern border
security.
In his Senate testimony, Ashcroft said the Justice Department's proposed
2003 budget called for 570 additional Border Patrol agents. If the request
is approved, most of those will be dispatched to the Canadian border to
replace the National Guard troops, he said.
In other budget-related matters, Ashcroft acknowledged that the Justice
Department was abandoning the largest federally funded police hiring program
in history.
Since 1994, the Clinton-era program, Community Oriented Policing Services
(COPS), has provided $6.4 billion for local police departments to hire
114,000 additional officers. So far, because of lag time for recruitment
and training, 83,000 of the 114,000 officers have been hired.
Although the program has been widely credited for accelerating the steady
decline in crime during the past eight years, Ashcroft told a Senate Appropriations
subcommittee that COPS had accomplished its ''objective.''
The initial aim of the program was to help finance the hiring of 100,000
new officers at a time when crime was raging in cities. ''I don't know
of a federal program that was more successful,'' Ashcroft told the Senate
panel.
Some senators, however, questioned the administration's decision to abandon
a project at a time when the threat of terrorism was placing additional
responsibilities on police departments.
''I don't know what to make of your answer,'' Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., told
Ashcroft, referring to the attorney general's glowing appraisal of the
COPS program. ''It's a great program, great success, but we're going to
go in a different direction?'' Kohl asked.
''It's accomplished its purpose,'' Ashcroft said.
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- © 2002 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
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