The Homeland Security Department has issued a directive to America's 21,000 border guards telling them they must "obtain a tactical advantage" by "distancing themselves" when illegal aliens throw rocks at them.

Yes, that's one option. Another option is to, like, you know, let them do their effing jobs!

Daily Caller:

“Agents shall not discharge firearms in response to thrown or hurled projectiles… agents should obtain a tactical advantage in these situations, such as seeking cover or distancing themselves,” said the instructions, issued Mar. 7, under the signature of Michael Fisher, chief of U.S. Border Patrol.

Agents were also directed to keep their weapons holstered when drug smugglers drive by.

Agents can’t use guns against “a moving vehicle merely fleeing from agents,” say the instructions.

The new instructions do allow agents to use guns to defend themselves from vehicles that drive at them. “Agents shall not discharge their firearms at a moving vehicle unless the agent has a reasonable belief that… deadly force is being used against an agent,” the new instructions say.

However, the instructions also suggest that officers be penalized if they don’t step back. Agents “should not place themselves in the path of a motor vehicle or use their body to block a vehicles’s path,” according to new instructions.

The new curbs were praised by advocates for greater immigration, including Juanita Molina, director of the Border Action Network. New Jersey Democratic Sen. Robert Menendez, and Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Menendez is one of the drafters of the June 2013 Senate immigration bill, which would boost the inflow of legal immigrants and guest workers up to 40 million over the next decade. During the same period, roughly 40 million Americans will turn 18.

The new rules were issued at the direction of Jeh Johnston, the new head of the Department of Homeland Security.

The rules match the recommendation of a report by an advocacy group that wants to reduce policing of illegal immigration.

The report by the Police Executive Research Forum was commissioned by DHS, and it said border agents should be barred from standing in front of smugglers’ vehicles or from shooting at people who are attacking them with rocks.

The commissioned report was challenged by mid-level DHS officials, who argued that the rules barring self-defense from rock-throwers “could create a more dangerous environment [especially for agents operating] in rural or desolate areas, often alone, where concealment, cover and egress is not an option,” according to a report in the Los Angeles Times.

Silly mid-level DHS officials. This new rule isn't about protecting border guards, and it is most especially not about border security. It's about opening the door about as far as it will go and then laying out a red carpet for the new illegal arrivals. In point of fact, there aren't too many rocks or trees in the desert that a border agent can use as a "tactical advantage" so "distancing" themelves - i.e., running away - is what the illegals can expect.

As for suspected drug smugglers, it actually makes sense for a single border guard to get out of the way of a speeding vehicle. Getting the license number and calling for assistance would seem to be the prudent thing to do.

But the DHS memo calls into question the reason for the existence of border guards. What good are border guards who run away? That's the point, isn't it?