Obama to Send Guard to the Border

President Obama will send 1200 National Guard troops to the border.

President Barack Obama is preparing to send as many as 1,200 National Guard troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, amid growing concern about cross-border criminal activity and a simmering debate over illegal immigration.

Obama plans to submit a request to Congress for $500 million in supplemental funding to secure the border and enforce federal laws, according to an administration official.

Details are still sketchy however here's what we know so far. Today, there was a pow wow between the Republicans and the President and illegal immigration was the main topic of debate. Republican sources call this a contentious meeting. According to Republicans, John McCain was adamant that the border must be secured first. Republicans also say that the President wasn't all that receptive to border enforcement. The White House has said little about the meeting and so this has been a one sided analysis.

That said, this announcement came out hours after details of the pow wow came out. It's also nothing more than a token effort. To get serious, President Obama needs to send about fifty thousand national guard to the border and he needs to give them a directive to speed up building the fence the Congress authorized in 2007.

Instead, Obama sends twelve hundred. That won't do much of anything. It's a way to appease the border security without really doing much for border security. This will do little to appease anyone serious about border security. Given the polling recently, that's most of the country.