PENITAS, Texas – Deploying National Guard troops to the border is still in the very early planning stages.
A spokesman for the Texas National Guard says it’s awaiting further guidance from the Department of Defense and the president. Yet, some say that money could be better spent.
Several miles from the border fence, just beyond the Rio Grande, U.S. Border Patrol in the area, as well as local police, all try to keep anything from being smuggled from reaching nearby Highway 83.
So why wouldn’t the city manager of Penitas want the National Guard to go back to the small town of 7,500 people?
“I think it sends the wrong message,” said Omar Romero, Penitas’ city manager.
Even unarmed troops, he said, could indicate to new business investors that Penitas is a dangerous place.
“This idea that it's gang members crossing over every day or it's violent criminals crossing every day, it's not that. I mean, we see family units and children,” Romero said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection said there was an overall increase of 37 percent in March compared to February of family units and unaccompanied children apprehended along the entire southwest border. The Border Patrol’s Rio Grande Valley Sector said it saw a 47 percent increase.
Despite the increase, it’s nowhere near the spike of people crossing that was seen a few years ago.
Romero believes money for the deployment could be better spent to hire more officers and give them the technology they need to do more of what they already do.
“Equip the local cities. Equip the counties,” he said. “We understand the problem better than someone in a chair in Washington.”
The last time the National Guard was in Penitas, Romero said all he saw them do was ride along with Border Patrol. He also said that border security funding for his small police department is now $60,000, half of what it was before.