All those troops coming to the Arizona border…..they are not going to be used to catch illegals. LLPOF.

US National Guard troops being sent to the Mexican border will be used to stem the flow of guns and drugs across the frontier and not to enforce US immigration laws, the State Department said Wednesday.

The clarification came after the Mexican government urged Washington not to use the additional troops to go after illegal immigrants.

President Barack Obama on Tuesday authorized the deployment of up to 1,200 additional troops to border areas but State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, “It’s not about immigration.”

He said the move was “fully consistent with our efforts to do our part to stem, you know, violence, to interdict the flow of dangerous people and dangerous goods — drugs, guns, people.”

He said the extra troops would be used to free up civilians engaged in support functions so that law enforcement personnel can be increased along the 2,000-mile-long (3,200 kilometer) border.

Suckered again.  We are all Cahrlie Brown now…

For almost three weeks now we’ve been hearing incessantly about the much-touted McCain-Kyl Border Action Plan.

Just one tiny problem, it’s not a bill yet, it is still being written.

I called Senator McCain’s office today to find out just where in the “legislative process” the plan stood.  I was told that the plan is still being written and no one in the office knew when it would actually hit the floor of the Senate.

John McCain at his best.  Another sound-byte, another commercial, another opportunity for John McCain to pontificate.  But the bottom line, John McCain has again lied to the residents of Arizona.  How do we know?  Easy, the first word of the McCain-Kyl Plan is immediately.

Dictionary.com defines immediately as:

without lapse of time; without delay; instantly; at once.

Considering that the plan is still being drafted weeks after its announcement and subsequent ad campaign, the McCain-Kyl Border Action Plan is the latest glaring example of John McCain’s inability to accomplish anything of substance dealing with the overwhelming challenges facing the residents of Arizona.

Since it’s announcement, we’ve had a deputy shot in the desert,  67 illegals captured one day, 89 illegals captured another night and the stories continue ad nauseum.  Thanks for nothing, Senator.

If you have somehow missed it, here is the plan.

The 10-step plan

• Immediately deploy 3,000 National Guard troops along the Arizona-Mexico border and add 3,000 Custom and Border Protection agents to the Arizona-Mexico border by 2015.

• Fund and support Operation Streamline in Arizona’s two Border Patrol sectors to ensure that repeat illegal border crossers go to jail for 15 to 60 days.

• Provide $100 million, an increase of $40 million, for Operation Stonegarden, a program that provides funds to Arizona's border law enforcement for additional costs related to illegal immigration and drug smuggling.

• Offer hardship-duty pay to Border Patrol agents assigned to rural, high trafficking areas.

• Complete the 700 miles of fencing along the U.S. border with Mexico and construct double- and triple-layer fencing at appropriate locations along the border. [Yeah right, that’s gonna happen]

• Increase the 25 mobile surveillance systems and three Predator B aerial drones in place along the Arizona-Mexico border. Send additional fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters to the Arizona-Mexico border.

• Increase funding for vital radio communications and interoperability between agencies.

• Provide funding for additional Border Patrol stations in the Tucson Sector and explore the possibility of an additional Border Patrol sector for Arizona. Create six additional permanent Border Patrol forward operating bases, and provide funding to upgrade the existing bases to include modular buildings, electricity and potable water. Complete construction of the planned permanent checkpoint in Arizona. Deploy additional temporary roving checkpoints.

• Require the federal government to fully reimburse state and local governments for the costs of incarcerating criminal aliens.

• Place one full-time federal magistrate in Cochise County and provide full funding for and authorization of the Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative to reimburse state, county, tribal, and municipal governments for costs associated with the prosecution and pretrial detention of federally-initiated criminal cases declined by local offices of the U.S. attorneys.

Sounds like a really, really good plan, doesn’t it?  Just remember though, they’re still writing it. Tick, tick, tick…..