BRINGING IN GUARD RAISES CONCERNS OF MILITARIZATION

LAREDO, Tex-- For years, Mayor Elizabeth G. Flores has been asking
Washington for more help in controlling not only illegal immigration
but also drug trafficking here at the nation's second-busiest border
crossing. More Border Patrol. Better technology. More federal resources.

But militarize the border with National Guardsmen? That is where she
draws the line.

"We have over 300 Border Patrol officers from here serving in Iraq.
Why doesn't [President Bush] bring them home to do the job they were
trained to do?" said Flores as she walked inside City Hall, which
overlooks Texas and U.S. flags out front and the Mexican flag about a
quarter-mile away at the border. This seat of government sits in one
of "los dos Laredos," the two Laredos, as locals say -- Laredo and
Nuevo Laredo, through which 4.4 million pedestrians, 6.3 million
vehicles and 1.4 million trucks pass yearly.

"The National Guard is trained to protect us from deadly people,"
said Flores, a Democrat who has been in office 8 1/2 years. "People
crossing over here to work are not our deadly enemy. . . . I think
this is all about discrimination and nothing else."

To assuage such concerns over a militarized border, Bush in his
nationally televised address Monday stressed that the National Guard
troops would play a strictly supporting role, saying, "The Border
Patrol will remain in the lead."

But the front-line fears of some local officials reflect only a few
of the broader questions about how the new National Guard role will
work. Apart from whether the Guard is the right force to use, Guard
officials themselves wonder how their forces, stretched by war-zone
deployments and homeland defense, will tackle a new mission, what
skills it will demand and -- perhaps most critical -- for how long.

Bush said as many as 6,000 Guard troops will be deployed along the
border for at least a year to help operate surveillance systems, to
analyze intelligence, to install fences, to build patrol roads and to
train. Guard units will reduce their numbers as the Border Patrol
gains strength, he said, and will not be directly involved in law enforcement.

Defense and Guard officials said the new mission would create
challenges for the Guard but should be feasible as long as it remains
temporary. "I personally think we can handle it," said Maj. Gen.
Roger P. Lempke, president of the Adjutants General Association of
the United States. But he said he hoped the mission would last no
longer than one year. "As long as we are there and visible, there
will be pressure to get the final solution done," he said.

The 440,000-strong National Guard has had more than 280,000 troops
federally mobilized for overseas missions and homeland defense since
2001. Nearly 71,000 are currently deployed, with 17,000 of them in Iraq.

In the most likely scenario, Guard troops sent to the border would
remain under the command of governors but be paid for with federal
funds, officials said.

The additional troops for the border would be drawn from around the
nation, defense officials said, although initially most would come
from states on or near the border or from underused units. Guard
units could also perform their required annual training on the
border, a defense official said.

The Guard could also expand the 400-strong force of full-time Guard
members now assisting border security personnel in countering drug
trafficking and narco-terrorism in the four border states. This
force, the Southwest State Joint Counterdrug Task Force, has existed
since 1989 but has shrunk from about 1,000 people in 1999 because of
a 44 percent cut in its budget, according to Guard figures.

"We could very quickly ramp up and double the effort if the funding
was available," said a National Guard counter-drug official at the
National Guard Bureau who spoke on the condition of anonymity because
the new policy was not finalized. "You are using the same techniques
to find illegal drug traffickers or to find a person."

The Counterdrug Task Force operates four RC-26 aircraft and 15 to 20
OH-58 helicopters equipped with infrared radars and high-powered
lights that can photograph and track movements of vehicles and people
crossing the border.

The task force also uses military ground sensors to detect people
coming over the border and gamma ray imagers to inspect vehicles and
cargo. Guard engineers have helped build roads and fences. The task
force also assists with intelligence analysis such as reviewing
license plates and phone call records, tracks money laundering, and
provides Spanish-speaking military linguists who translate recordings
and documents.

About 10,000 Border Patrol agents are deployed along the U.S.-Mexico
border, and patrol hours climbed about 167 percent between 1997 and
2005. But there is no clear link between staffing and arrests, or
between arrests and a reduction in the flow of illegal immigration,
analysts say.

Estimates of how many agents are needed vary. In 1999, one estimate
given the House projected that 16,000 were needed on the southern
border. In 2004, Congress authorized the hiring of 10,000 more and is
slowly funding them.

But in Laredo, although some officials agreed on the need for more
border forces, they voiced fear that military deployment could send
the wrong message.

"It's showing your teeth before you reach out your hand," said the
president of Texas A&M International University here, Ray Keck. Keck
said federal officials do not understand the interdependence of U.S.
border cities and their Mexican counterparts, noting that 10 percent
of his university's students are Mexican nationals.

The Mexican consul in Laredo, Daniel Hernandez Joseph, said he
welcomed proposals to increase border security. But he said that
deploying the National Guard would "not be seen as a friendly act."

"Do they understand that every Hispanic is not illegal?" Hernandez
said of the National Guard. "The Border Patrol has that training."

Tyson reported from Washington. Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu
contributed to this report.