President Barack Obama's deployment of 250 National Guard troops to the 1,254-mile Texas-Mexico border has intensified a politically charged debate over border security just two weeks before Obama visits the state to raise money for Democratic candidates.

Republican Gov. Rick Perry, one of Obama's harshest critics in Texas, has asked to meet with Obama during his Aug. 9 fundraising trip to discuss his concerns about Obama's "grossly insufficient" allocation of Guard troops, Perry spokeswoman Katherine Cesinger said.

Perry chief of staff Ray Sullivan has "reached out" to the White House to request a meeting between Perry and Obama when the president visits Austin and Houston for fundraisers sponsored by the Democratic National Committee and the Senate Democratic Campaign Committee, Cesinger said.

"The scope and magnitude of the threat our nation faces demands a more serious and robust commitment," Perry told Obama in a recent letter.

Obama's administration has announced that it will send 1,200 Guard troops to the four states bordering Mexico beginning next Sunday. Texas, which has more than 60 percent of the 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, will get 20 percent of the allocation, or 250 troops. The Texas allocation equates to one troop for every five miles of the state's border with Mexico.

Arizona, which has 19 percent of the border, will get 524. California will receive 224 troops, New Mexico will get 72, and the rest will go to a national liaison office.

Republicans insulted

Texas Republicans, led by Perry, have assailed the deployment as insulting and woefully anemic, describing the initiative as yet another example of the federal government's failure to protect the border. U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, said, "Maybe Texas should sue the federal government for not doing its job."

While some Democrats acknowledge that the 250 troops constitute a small number for a Texas-size problem, others counter that shoring up the porous border should involve far more than dispatching troops and accuse Perry of political grandstanding.

"Perry would rather talk about boots on the ground rather than how to solve the problem," said Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, a member of the Public Safety Committee in the Texas House. "He would like to completely militarize our border, and I completely disagree with that."

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White, who has denounced Perry's confrontational approach with Washington on border enforcement, has said that he would work with other officials to gain additional federal personnel, equipment and technology to improve border security.

White's staffers said Perry's earlier plans to improve border security included a $4 million program of cameras along the border, which netted about two dozen arrests.

'A Band-Aid'?

"Immigration policy and border security are responsibilities of the federal government, and they're failing us," said Katy Bacon, a spokeswoman for White. "The National Guard troops are not an adequate or long-term solution -- they're only a Band-Aid."

The 250 troops will be assigned exclusively from Texas units and will work under the supervision of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, a branch of the Homeland Security Department, according to state and federal officials. They will be deployed strictly in a support capacity, assisting Border Patrol agents in analyzing intelligence and serving on "entry identification teams" to help spot illegal border crossers, the officials said.

Army Col. Bill Meehan, public affairs officer for the Texas Military Forces, said that one duty will be to help operate so-called scope trucks mounted with giant high-tech surveillance scopes to detect illegal crossers or possible criminal activity. Meehan said the Guard personnel will "be armed for their self-defense," but he declined to elaborate on specific policy covering rules of force.

After the deployment begins next weekend, Guard troops are expected to undergo training at Camp Swift in Bastrop County.

Customs and Border Protection officials will determine where they are assigned along the border, which includes vast stretches of desolate terrain as well as teeming urban centers such as the sister cities of El Paso in Texas and crime-ridden Juarez in Mexico.

Department of Public Safety Director Steve McCraw, who oversees homeland security for the state, said he would like to see the Guard troops assigned to rural observation outposts to complement Texas Ranger "recon teams" that are part of Operation Border Star, the state's multiagency border task force.

Under President George W. Bush, 6,000 Guard troops were deployed in all four border states to help the Border Patrol during ramped-up efforts to combat illegal immigration from 2006 to 2008. Known as Operation Jump Start, the deployment included 3,000 Guard personnel assigned to Texas, virtually all from units in the Lone Star State.

Perry, who initiated Operation Border Star in 2006 from earlier border enforcement efforts, has continually complained that the Obama administration has been unresponsive to his calls for more border personnel to carry out a federal responsibility. He originally asked for 1,000 National Guard troops in February 2009.

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Federal officials have reportedly said that states that want more troops may have them, as long as they pick up the tab for the additions.

Perry noted in his letter to Obama that the Texas Legislature has already dedicated more than $200 million in recent years to border security. He also repeated his request for 1,000 Guard troops.

"This is a federal responsibility, and it shouldn't fall on the backs of Texans to pick up the tab and responsibility for security on the border," Cesinger said. "We don't think it's unreasonable to ask the federal government to pay for something that's their responsibility in the first place."

However, "while it's a federal responsibility, it's a Texas problem," she said. "We're not going to stand by and put the lives of Texans at risk."

Cesinger didn't say that means that Texans will pay for more guardsmen, but she said Perry will continue asking Obama for more guardsmen funded by the federal government.

Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott, contending that the 250-troop deployment "is not going to get the job done," said the state may have to consider funding more personnel for the border.

"I feel that public safety has to be the primary function of government, whether it be state or federal, and we want the federal government to provide the resources that are needed," Abbott said last week. "To the extent they don't, I believe the state needs to step up."

Republicans and Democrats were split on the value of the deployment.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, praised Obama's actions, saying, "The temporary deployment will provide immediate support to our federal law enforcement until Customs and Border Protection and ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] can recruit and train additional officers, agents and analysts."


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