There are more members of the SC National Guard stationed on America’s southern border with Mexico than on missions abroad.
About 300 South Carolina soldiers are stationed at points along the 2,000-mile stretch that divides the United States’ border with Mexico. They are there helping in what has been called federal law enforcement understaffed amid a recent increase in migrant crossings.
This includes support assignments to the United States Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection in all states on the southern border of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas.
It is a large number of soldiers for the State of Palmetto to deploy.
And it has grown significantly since Governor Henry McMaster announced that he would first send just one helicopter and three crew members to the area in 2018.
In comparison, only 60 National Guards in SC remain abroad: 55 in Europe and five in the Middle East, as many foreign missions are beginning to decline.
Defense and White House officials have not said whether the mission, which was authorized until September 30, will end before President Joe Biden attempts to undo some of the border policies originating from the Trump administration.
And while Biden hopes to diminish the government’s presence there, policy experts and government watchers believe it will take months, and perhaps even years, before a significant number of soldiers, including from the SC Guard, leave the area.
Three to 300
Since April 2018, Homeland Security has sent 33 requests for assistance to the Department of Defense, requesting soldiers, equipment and support, according to a February report by the US Government Accountability Office.
Almost from the start, McMaster, a Republican and Trump’s close ally, offered to lend a hand.
In May 2018, McMaster signed up to send help from the state National Guard, taking to Twitter about deploying a UH-72 Lakota helicopter and three crew members from Greenville to the Texas border.
“President Trump is delivering on his promise to protect our border, and South Carolina is proud to help,” tweeted McMaster at the time. “Join them in thanking them for their service and praying for their safety and success in their mission.”
Two years later, in May 2020, South Carolina was notified that the federal mobilization would require a significant number of guards to help Trump’s border agenda and the Department of Homeland Security’s crucial need.
Brian Symmes, a spokesman for McMaster, said in response to this story that the governor “fully supports the critical mission of protecting our southern border and the incredible and selfless work that South Carolina is doing in support of that mission.”
South Carolina National Guard troops can perform a variety of daily tasks at the border. Historically, troops have aided federal law enforcement with “combating drugs, combating transnational organized crime and other transnational threats,” said Major Karla Evans, a spokeswoman for the South Carolina National Guard.
This can range from helping to file paperwork for migrant travelers and helping to repair vehicles to patrol incomplete sections of Trump’s border wall project or provide surveillance. Many soldiers receive a daily allowance, which allows them to stay in nearby hotels and buy meals.
While the SC National Guard’s most recent mobilizations for Washington, DC, last summer during the racial justice protests and its activation for Biden’s presidential tenure were widely publicized by state officials, his presence at the border was not widely publicized.
DHS lacks labor
The cornerstone of Trump’s 2016 campaign was to build an extensive border wall as his solution to stop undocumented immigrants and which would become a symbol of his “First America” policies.
When he was president, Trump stepped up his effort by the wall after declaring that the caravans of migrants traveling from Central America to the southern border were a major threat to national security. As the former president demanded more protection, the Department of Homeland Security continued to need more boots at the scene.
Last summer was the largest number of National Guard soldiers across the country on the southern border, about 5,500 in total. It has fluctuated below that in the past few months. But the Department of Homeland Security started to rely on outside help.
In a government surveillance report published in February, Homeland Security foresaw the need for at least the same number of National Guard soldiers for the next three to five years.
Mackenzie Eaglen, a researcher at the nonprofit organization American Enterprise Institute in Washington, told the Post and Courier that Biden is unlikely to completely withdraw National Guard soldiers, including those available in South Carolina, from the border.
“Since the Department of Homeland Security was established, they have had the additional support of US military personnel for two decades,” said Eaglen. “I think (Biden) will reduce it to a significant level compared to Trump’s numbers, but, fundamentally, DHS lacks the manpower to fulfill its mission.”
The Department of Homeland Security is hesitant to ask for help, especially since a recent influx of immigrants has reached the southern border since Biden’s inauguration.
Arrests and detentions increased to almost 78,000 in January, according to The Washington Post. Notably, it is the highest number in that month in at least a decade and more than double the previous year.
It’s not the first rodeo
Traditionally, the South Carolina Army National Guard has a long history of providing border security support. SC troops were called up earlier during the presidency of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Trump.
In the late 1990s, the SC National Guard built part of the existing border wall in the San Diego area. In 2007, they provided 2-OH58 Kiowa aircraft and 20 employees to support security operations along the Arizona-Mexico border.
In 2012, the South Carolina Army National Guard helped the Texas Military Department provide surveillance for Customs and Border Patrol. In 2016, 15 South Carolina soldiers and two UH-72 Lakota helicopters were used to assist in a drug-fighting operation.
Senator Lindsey Graham, RS.C., has been a vocal advocate of Trump’s border wall agenda, even when the president stepped down. Last month, he traveled to the Arizona border wall and spoke to reporters about how he thought the Biden government needed to fill in the gaps in the wall and highlighted an open section near Nogales.
“They are having to use labor-intensive efforts,” Graham told reporters. “They are making people watch and ATVs going up and down. If they just built these two panels, they could take those resources and apply them elsewhere.”
A spokesman for Graham declined to comment on the South Carolina National Guard’s presence at the border and whether the senator felt his presence was necessary.
The border operation has cost about $ 939 million since fiscal 2018, according to Pentagon figures quoted last year by the Washington Post.