Kentucky Guards the Border

The Associated Press reported last week that the governor of Kentucky has agreed to send a contingent of the Kentucky National Guard to help patrol the southern border.

Kentucky will send up to 650 National Guard troops to patrol the U.S. border with Mexico under an agreement signed by Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

Fletcher said the soldiers could be deployed by July under a memorandum of agreement with several other states.

Fletcher said the troops will not be permanently used for immigration patrols. "It will be on a rotational basis for a short period of time — maybe for several weeks," Fletcher said. "Then they'd come back and we'd have another group go down."

There is no word yet on whether the Guard troops being deployed will include canine units utilizing the state's prized breed of hunting dogs.