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Tenn. Guard general defends border troops

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Four Tennessee National Guardsmen who encountered armed men near the Arizona-Mexico border performed as trained and there is no need to expand the Guard’s authority, the state’s commanding officer said Tuesday.

According to a report by the National Guard Bureau, a group of armed men approached as close as 10 meters while on patrol near Sasabe, Ariz., on Jan. 3.

The guardsmen followed training to pull back to their observation post and call U.S. Border Patrol to respond, Adjutant Maj. Gen. Gus Hargett said Tuesday, responding to criticism from some Arizona officials who want the Guard to play a stronger role in immigration enforcement.

“They did not run from anybody on that border,” he said of the guardsmen, who belong to a unit that was previously deployed in Iraq.

Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and the commander of the Arizona National Guard have both defended the troops’ action.

The report stated that both groups kept their weapons low throughout the encounter, which ended as the guardsmen pulled away.

Hargett said the soldiers are restricted in their use of force and are not allowed to apprehend people coming over the border.

“Our people are put there on a specific mission,” Hargett said. “One of those is not to defend the border with Mexico. It is to assist the Border Patrol.”

Border Patrol agents tracked the armed men back to the border but were not able to find them.

Hargett said the incident doesn’t demonstrate to him that National Guard troops need the authority to arrest illegal immigrants coming over the border, as some critics have suggested.

“We don’t need the military to enforce the civilian laws of the country,” Hargett said.

By assisting the Border Patrol, the Guard has improved security on the border, he said.

“I will tell you that our men and women are doing a great job out there and they’re making a significant difference in the drug trafficking across that border,” Hargett said.

“Governor [Phil] Bredesen is extremely proud of the men and women of the Tennessee National Guard who are providing assistance to the U.S. Border Patrol,” said Lydia Lenker, the governor’s spokeswoman. “They are displaying a high level of professionalism, enormous courage and a solemn sense of duty to their state and nation.”

Another group of Tennessee National Guard soldiers was sent to the border Monday, bringing the total number of Tennessee troops to 395.

The second group is an engineering unit that will build roads, fencing and lights along the border, Hargett said.

The chairman of Arizona’s House homeland security committee, Republican Rep. Warde Nichols, has said he believed the troops should have captured the armed men. He said he planned to file a bill in the state legislature to push for authorizing guardsmen to detain illegal immigrants.

Nichols also said he is worried that the incident has highlighted the Guard’s limited role along the border.

Napolitano’s office has said the rules allow Guard members to use force when they believe they face an imminent threat and all other means are exhausted.

“I don’t think that it’s up to the committee to negotiate the rules of engagement,” Napolitano said Sunday. “Those rules of engagement were negotiated with the National Guard at the federal level.”