The head of the national Border Patrol union said Friday that President Donald Trump's call to deploy the National Guard to the U.S.-Mexico border has been a "colossal waste."
The National Border Patrol Council, which includes 15,000 Border Patrol agents, initially supported Trump's decision to call for the National Guard to deploy troops.
"When I found out the National Guard was going to be on the border I was extremely excited,” National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd told The Los Angeles Times, saying that he thought the assistance would reduce the Border Patrol's workload.
However, Judd told the newspaper that "that has not happened at all,” that they "have seen no benefit" from their deployment, which he called "a colossal waste of resources."
According to Judd, National Guard troops had been expected to assist on the front lines as they did when previously deployed to the border during former President Barack Obama's administration, though they could only "observe and report."
"They were allowed to do a lot more than they are under the Trump administration," Judd told the Times. "They were allowed to be in lookout and observation posts. They were allowed to be out grading the roads and mending fences. They were allowed to be our eyes and ears, freeing us up."
One Pentagon official, who asked not to be named, noted that the governors of the four border states where troops were sent set the terms of engagement.
"The overall support is to the mission, but they're going to be parceled out differently by state," he said. "It hasn't been a significant change under [former Presidents] George Bush, Obama and now Trump. They're different in how they're perceived. They're no different in what they're doing."
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