May 15, 2002
By Tim Steller, ARIZONA DAILY STAR

Budgetary concerns have persuaded the U.S. Customs Service to send back 377 National Guard troops assigned recently to help the agency along the Mexican border.

The soldiers, including 125 assigned to Arizona ports of entry, have been helping to carry out border inspections since March.

But the help is more urgently needed on the northern border, where troops have also been deployed, said customs spokesman Roger Maier. Since customs must reimburse the Defense Department for all the deployed soldiers, it has chosen to pay for the help currently stationed along the Canadian line, Maier said.

Soldiers also were assigned to the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the Border Patrol along the Mexican line. Those 517 soldiers remain deployed, said Lt. Col. Stephen Nolan of the 5th U.S. Army at Fort Sam Houston, Texas.

The soldiers have been assigned since early March, when they were called up by a presidential order.

The end of the produce season also makes the soldiers less useful in Nogales, Maier said. The produce business, which accounts for most of the tractor-trailers passing through the port of entry, hits its peak in the spring and declines steadily in May.

"In the interim, we're in the middle of a big hiring push," Maier said.

Customs is trying to hire about 1,000 inspectors for assignment throughout the country.

The customs decision does not affect the approximately 150 National Guard troops assigned to anti-drug duties along the Arizona-Mexico border. That deployment has been in effect since the 1980s.

* Contact Tim Steller at 434-4086 or steller@azstarnet.com.
http://www.azstarnet.com/star/wed/20515GUARDBORDER.html