Pentagon is sending more than 1,100 extra troops to the southern border, report says
The U.S. Department of Defense has approved plans to send 1,115 more active-duty soldiers to the southern border, the latest ramping up of America's military presence in the Southwest under President Donald Trump's administration.
The Military Times reports that the units will support engineering, logistics, and construction missions, performing duties ranging from clearing roads to providing medical care.
Their deployment will bring the total number of U.S. troops stationed at the border closer to the 10,000 that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth promised earlier this year.
There are currently around 8,600 personnel stationed at the border.
Approximately 6,100 of that total were moved there by the new administration as part of its attempt to crack down on the flow of undocumented immigrants and contraband into California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.
The Pentagon has also sent U-2 surveillance planes, helicopters, two Navy Destroyers, and a brigade of armored Stryker vehicles to help with the mission, which has cost an estimated $525m to date, according to The New York Times.
The administration has further moved to redesignate two long strips of land along the border stretching hundreds of miles as military bases, overseen by army commands at Fort Bliss near El Paso, Texas, and Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
That has enabled soldiers to detain migrants who trespass on it without violating a prohibition against soldiers engaging in domestic law enforcement, which is otherwise only permitted if the president has invoked the Insurrection Act.
A federal judge recently dismissed charges brought against 100 migrants accused of trespassing into New Mexico, ruling that they had not been given sufficient warning that they were entering Pentagon property.
Trump and Hegseth have pledged to achieve '100 percent operational control' over the border, and illegal crossings have plunged since Trump took office, although they had already begun to fall sharply in the latter part of Joe Biden's presidency.
They have also committed to expanding the U.S. military, and the president's 'big, beautiful bill' that passed the House of Representatives on Thursday includes an additional $150bn commitment to defense spending.
Congressional Democrats have criticized the escalation, calling it a waste of resources that risks placing the Armed Forces in needless danger.
'It is difficult to explain the border missions as anything but a distraction from readiness,' said Rhode Island Senator Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Forces Committee, earlier this month.
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