On the Border: Fort Bliss soldiers deployed to Arizona-Mexico border



"JTF North routinely conducts these kinds of support operations"



From ElPasoInc.com

A squadron from Fort Bliss has been deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona to assist the Border Patrol and train.

“They are helping us out with being eyes and ears,” said agent Colleen Agle, a public affairs officer with the Border Patrol. That means essentially that they aren’t authorized to search, detain or arrest suspects. But the 1st Squadron, 13 Calvary Regiment is out in the field armed with some of the Defense Department’s high-tech equipment and radios to report suspicious activity to Border Patrol agents, according to Agle. The soldiers from Fort Bliss have been assigned to the Tucson Sector to support the 3,400 Border Patrol agents there, along with National Guardsmen and other soldiers from Fort Hood, Agle said.

While the efforts of active duty soldiers on the border haven’t been as well publicized as those of the National Guard or reservists, the 1st Squadron isn’t the first to be deployed to the border through a voluntary program administered under Joint Task Force North, headquartered on Fort Bliss. Spokesperson Armando Carrasco said that JTF North, “routinely conducts these kinds of support operations.”