A senior Department of Homeland Security official defended 1,100 National Guard troops who have been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border after a Border Patrol union chief called them a “colossal waste.”
“You’ve got this guy over there bashing them for stepping up and being the patriots that they are. They don’t deserve to be called useless or worthless – whatever kind of language it is,” CBP Deputy Commissioner Ronald Vitiello told the Washington Examiner on Friday afternoon.
“These men and women – they leave their homes to go and deploy on behalf of the president’s request,” he added. “Most of them don’t live near the border, most of them aren’t going home at the end of their shifts.”
National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd, who endorsed President Trump in 2016, came out against the deployment on Friday after initially calling for and supporting the April executive action.
Vitiello said his agency has been “very pleased” with the guard’s temporary addition as it has been a “force-multiplier” of CBP officers and Border Patrol agents.
Judd had complained that troops in this operation were not doing as much boots-on-the-ground tasks compared to previous missions during the Bush and Obama administrations.
Vitiello said that claim is true because the agency has learned from previous deployments on how the guardsmen can best assist agents. In addition, technology has changed since the first deployment in 2006, which makes it more practical for troops to be stationed at sector headquarters and alert agents near the border when sensors, drones, or cameras alert them of suspicious activity.
“In some of the previous deployments where they were stationed on the border, we couldn’t be more than a couple of minutes away from those outposts,” Vitiello said, due to the National Guard’s not being able to carry out law enforcement duties, including arresting people. “We’re much better off than we were in 2006 … I think they’re fully utilized.”
The deployments are expected to last through the end of fiscal year 2018 in September and could continue into the next year. Trump has approved up to 4,000 troops to assist an agency that is already struggling to hire and retain personnel on top of his January 2017 executive order to hire thousands more.
Vitiello said despite the military back-up, DHS is pushing to add more men and women to its CBP ranks, including through a mobility program and by investing in retention programs.
