Maine Guard ready to send task force to Mexico border

LEWISTON – The Maine National Guard is prepared to send a task force with as many as 500 people to America’s southern border next spring.

Nothing has been confirmed yet, but Maine Guard officials say personnel from the state’s Army and Air Guard units may be part of a national force of guardsmen to be assigned to the U.S.-Mexico border.

If the Maine units participate, they would go to Arizona for two or three weeks for their annual training session. There, they would build roads and fences or pilot helicopters along the border.

Maine guard officials offered their services for President Bush’s “Operation Jump Start,” a plan to place 6,000 National Guard troops in non-enforcement support roles from Texas to California.

Two delegations of Maine’s top officers have visited Arizona, where they went to border crossings at Nogales and Yuma, saw fences being built and met with the top officer in that state’s National Guard.

“He was open arms for us,” said Col. Gerald Dunlap, the chief of staff for the Maine Guard and part of a delegation that visited Arizona last week.

State officials also contacted guard units in Texas, California and New Mexico, but said they found the greatest need in Arizona.

If all goes as expected, the Maine soldiers would go to Arizona next April and May, drawing from a mix of army and air units.

The Arizona border is considered the most vulnerable stretch of the 2,000-mile southern border to illegal entry and remains the most heavily trafficked area for smuggling of illegal immigrants.

Hundreds of guard troops are now working side-by-side with Border Patrol agents along the Arizona-Mexico border, freeing up agents for their core jobs.