National Guard Lists Protecting U.S.-Mexico Border as No. 2 Top Mission in 2010
(CNSNews.com) – The National Guard's No. 1 mission in 2010 was responding to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and the No. 2 mission was providing support for the Department of Homeland Security in policing the U.S.-Mexico border, according to the National Guard Bureau.
In explaining the top 10 missions of the year, Jon Anderson, a spokesman at the National Guard Bureau, said, “We just look at the things that we got the most reader interaction from, the things that were most interesting. Also, it was what our leadership was interested in, too -- the kind of efforts that they would have to put into it and the attention that we would need to give to it.”
The National Guard published its top 10 missions for 2010 on its Web site, which described the operations as the “most memorable” ones for 2010.
“I think the majority of it was what was interesting,” Anderson told CNSNews.com. “What motivated us, what got people talking right here in and around the National Guard headquarters, but also at the state level, too, because we have 54 states and territories, each with its own army and air National Guard, and what they care about is really important, too.”
The number one top mission for the National Guard this year was “Operation Deepwater Horizon,” which involved the April 20 explosion at the BP-leased oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 workers and released millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.
As a result of the spill -- which was the top news story of 2010, according to The Associated Press -- fishing and tourism industries in the area were devastated, an expensive clean up effort occurred, and a $20-billion fund to pay for damages was established.
“More than 1,600 Guardmembers were assigned to the Gulf coast states,” according to the National Guard. “Troops helped clean up and contain the almost five million barrels (200 million gallons) of crude oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico.”
The number two mission was listed as “supporting the Department of Homeland Security on the southwest border,” said the Guard Web site. The southwest border is 1,994 miles long, according to Cutoms and Border Protection data, and runs from the Gulf to the Pacific, across southern Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
In May 2010, President Barack Obama announced his decision to deploy 1,200 National Guard troops to the southwest border. The move was criticized by border-state lawmakers from both parties as insufficient to improve border security challenges.
Some border-state members of Congress also expressed concern that the 1,200 Guardmembers would not be engaged in direct law enforcement.
The 1,200 troops started to gradually deploy to the four southwestern border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas on Aug. 1. As of mid-November, according to a deployment count by the National Guard, almost all 1,200 troops had been deployed.
According to the National Guard top missions in 2010 news article, “National Guardmembers are assisting Customs and Border Protection [CBP] and Immigration and Customs Enforcement [ICE] agents on the nation’s Southwest border. Up to 1,200 Guardmembers are serving as criminal investigative analysts and Entry Identification Team members in the four border states of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.”
The CBP and ICE agencies are components of the Department of Homeland Security.
The top 10 National Guard missions are listed in the following order: 1) Operation Deepwater Horizon; 2) Supporting the Department of Homeland Security on the Southwest border; 3) Haiti earthquake relief; 4) Pakistan flood relief; 5) Operation New Dawn; 6) First F-22 assigned to the Air National Guard; 7) State Partnership Program; 8) 2010 Winter Olympics; 9) Homeland Response Forces; and 10) Agribusiness Development Teams.
“Tens of thousands of Citizen-Soldiers and -Airmen are executing ongoing federal missions worldwide, and the National Guard responded to planned and unplanned domestic events in 2010,” stated the National Guard in its Web site article about the top 10 missions this year.
“Every day, governors call out their National Guard to help citizens in need,” it added. “Although 2010 lacked a major hurricane, wildfire or other natural disaster within the U.S., Guardmembers were as busy serving their governors in domestic operations as they were serving their commander-in-chief overseas.”
CNSNews.com previously reported that as of August 2010, there were approximately 55,000 National Guard members assigned to missions overseas, which is about 45 times more than the up to 1,200 Guard troops on the southwest border.
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