The National Guard Belongs On Our Border, Again
By Robert Klein Engler (12/22/04)
Many Americans familiar with the problems of illegal immigration to the U. S. suggest that President Bush order the National Guard to patrol our border with Mexico. What most Americans do not remember, however, is that almost 100 years ago the Guard was put on the border by President Wilson. If it can be done by a President then, why can't it be done now?
At the beginning of the 20th century, Mexican society and politics were in turmoil. Wealth and political power were concentrated in the hands of a few, and social injustice was prevalent. Eventually, these strains in Mexican society lead to the revolution of 1910.
>From about 1910 to 1917 death by politics was common place in Mexico. R. J. Rummel estimates that over 2 million Mexicans died as a result of the violence brought on by the revolution. Matthew White claims that, ''the intensity of the Mexican Revolution is such that the counted population of Mexico actually declined.'' Sadly, the ancient Aztec enchantment with death that was a drumbeat then, still echoes into the 21st century.
The killing in Mexico began with opposition to President Porfiriato Diaz's rule and ended with the PRI (Partido Insitucional Revolucionario) holding power. In the course of this violence, Venustiano Carranza, a Mexican state governor, became president. President Woodrow Wilson sided with Carranza, believing he would bring stability to Mexico. To help Carranza, President Wilson decided to prevent a shipment of arms from the city of Veracruz to Carranza's opponents. U. S. forces seized this seaport on the eastern coast of Mexico in 1914.
Nevertheless, Carranza could not bring the stability to Mexico Wilson hoped for, and soon Carranza's soldiers were fighting the supporters of Francisco "Pancho'' Villa and Emiliano Zapata. In retaliation for U. S. support of Carranza, Villa crossed the U. S./Mexican border in 1916 and raided Columbus, New Mexico. Responding to that raid, President Wilson sent General John J. Pershing into Mexico to apprehend Villa, but Pershing's troops failed to capture him.
Writing about the history of the National Guard on the border with Mexico, David L. Snook reports, ''On March 9, 1916, Mexican rebels, led by General Francisco (Pancho) Villa, attacked the U. S. Army garrison... A number of American soldiers and civilians were killed and considerable property was destroyed...On the day following the raid, President Woodrow Wilson ordered Brigadier General John J. Pershing to organize an expeditionary force to assist the Mexican government in apprehending Villa.''
Snook continues, ''As American troops pursued Villa deeper into Mexico, clashes with Carranza's followers also took place. The threat of a wider war led President Wilson to call 75,000 National Guardsmen into federal service to help police the border...On June 18, the entire National Guard, except for coast artillery units, was called to duty. Within days, the first of 158,664 National Guardsmen were on their way to camps in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.''
Almost 100 years after the attempt to secure the U. S./Mexican border and apprehend Pancho Villa, that border is still in turmoil. Everyday, a battalion of Mexicans decides to escape their country's problems and go north. In doing so, they bring the problems of that country into the U. S. Meanwhile, the elites of Mexico, not wanting to make the sacrifices needed to improve their own society and resentful of their own history, are all too happy to send their poverty and unemployment elsewhere.
The 150,000 troops used by President Wilson to secure our border almost a century ago is a good example of what we should do today. The National Guard on the border with Mexico would help stem the flow of illegal immigrants and drugs into Arizona, California and the rest of the U. S. Some estimates place this flow of illegals from 500 to 4,000 a day. And it's not all Mexicans. Illegal immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and elsewhere pay the coyotes to take them across the border. Certainly, there are terrorist now, who have come into the U. S. via our southern border with Mexico.
Our current foreign policy that aims to turn down the heat on the pressure cooker that is Mexican society by allowing illegal immigration to the U. S. is mistaken. All that policy does is turn up the heat on African Americans and the U. S. working classes. If Mexico is teetering on the edge of another revolution, then open borders are not going to do much to take Mexicans back from that edge.
If we want to repair relations with Mexico, then we have to repair our border with that country. If we want to be a good neighbor and help Mexico develop as a nation, then we must help Mexico deal with its internal problems of poverty and unemployment, not ignore them by sending them north. The National Guard stationed on the border will help do that. In the words of the poet Robert Frost, ''Good fences make good neighbors.''
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