More US troops headed to the Southern border
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The Pentagon is sending 1,115 additional active-duty troops to deploy to the U.S.-Mexico border, bringing the number of service members there close to 10,000.
© Associated Press
The troops will mainly help with sustainment engineering, logistics, medical and construction, U.S. Northern Command said in a statement Thursday.
The additional service members mark another increase in the military's role in supporting President Trump's aggressive immigration control agenda.
There are already just shy of 8,000 active-duty troops at the border, with the added 1,115 bringing the total to nearly 10,000, a figure approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth earlier this year.
Trump, since the start of his administration, has vastly increased the number of troops at the border – by about 7,500 – after he heavily campaigned on minimizing illegal immigration and removing immigrants in the United States without legal status, promising 'mass deportations.'
Last month, Trump authorized the military to take control of federal land stretching across three states at the southern border and designate it as 'National Defense Areas' to assist in implementing his immigration crackdown. The move gave the military a more direct role in interacting with immigrants at the border, as it was given the authority to detain and search immigrants lacking certain documentation in New Mexico.
In the past decade, troops have traditionally supported law enforcement agencies with immigration issues at the border via logistics, surveillance, security and setting up temporary barriers or fencing, and they were not meant to come into contact with individuals crossing into the United States.
But under Trump's second term, the U.S. military has continued to surge troops, armored vehicles, surveillance planes, warships and helicopters to assist in the southern border mission, even as the number of people attempting to enter the country has dropped dramatically.
Read more at TheHill.com.
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