Rick Perry's border adventure and the Texas National Guard

Jake Moser argues that the deployment of National Guard troops to the border was unnecessary in his recent blog post, Charge the Troops to your Campaign FundInstead, Mr. Perry.  In the post, Jake argues that Governor Perry is correctly drawing attention to the issue of immigration reform but is wasting resources by using the National Guard in a purpose that will have no beneficial effect on the current immigration problem.  The children who are arriving at the border in droves are not committing crimes and therefore additional law enforcement will serve no purpose other than to waste $3 million per week.

I agree with Mr. Moser’s commentary and also believe that Governor Perry is misusing State resources to keep his name in the media in preparation for a 2016 presidential run.  The current immigration crisis cannot be solved at the state level and Governor Perry’s efforts will prove fruitless as the migrants will already be on American soil by the time they encounter border security personnel.  The national media attention being brought to the issue should be used constructively to foster ideas that provide long-term solutions amicable to all parties involved.

The blog post is well written and makes compelling, well-reasoned arguments.  In improving the commentary, I would suggest including a citation or embedded link confirming the estimated $38 million per month cost of the troop deployment to assure the reader that facts are not being misstated.  The argument regarding crime could be strengthened by including quotes from key officials in the affected region, such as Hidalgo County Judge Ramon Garcia, who told USA TODAY, “There is no public safety crisis here.  These are not drug dealers. These are not terrorists. These are human beings looking for something better than what they had."