TN National Guard Continues Duty on Mexican Border

Since Governor Phil Bredesen ordered troops to the Mexican border in June, more than 500 Tennessee Guardsmen have spent time patrolling the border.

In May, President Bush called for the short-term deployment of up to 6-thousand National Guard troops. Bush said the Guard would assist Border Patrol agents by operating surveillance systems, analyzing intelligence and installing fences.

Captain Darrin Haas returned to Nashville last week from a 17-day tour monitoring the Arizona border for illegal immigrant crossings. As the commander of the 269th military police company, Haas says every night was busy.

“We would monitor any type of activity. If someone were to jump over the fence or just to be spotted out there, we would spot them. We would watch them, and notify Border Patrol, and they would intercept and determine if they were aliens, if they were Americans or what their status was.”

Haas says U-S border communities were generally supportive of the stronger military presence and cheered on the stricter enforcement of border security.

The new fiscal year begins next month for the Guard, and officials say roughly one-thousand MP’s, engineers and maintenance personnel will be deployed from Tennessee over the next year.