CNN
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Thousands of additional active-duty U.S. troops are being ordered to the South American border with Mexico, just two days after President Donald Trump ordered the U.S. military to increase its presence there, according to officials familiar with the matter. .
There are already about 2,200 active duty forces on the border as part of the U.S. Northern Command’s border mission Joint Task Force-North based in El Paso, Texas. They assist U.S. Customs and Border Protection there, performing mostly logistical and bureaucratic tasks such as data entry, tracking and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.
It is not yet clear which specific units are being ordered to the border.
There is also a National Guard force on the border called Operation Lonestar led by the Texas National Guard. About 4,500 National Guardsmen are currently assigned to the mission, according to the Texas Military Department.
Additional active duty troops being sent to the border this week will do the same, officials said, and are expected to join and augment Joint Task Force-North.
They will help maintain operational readiness for the Border Patrol, support command and control centers, and provide more intelligence experts to assess threats and refugee flows, according to sources familiar with the planning.
The troops are also expected to augment air assets and support air operations.
Even more active-duty troops are expected to deploy to the border in the coming weeks and months, an official said, with this first wave laying the foundation for a larger military footprint.
It is not clear whether these troops will be armed. But no active duty trooper is authorized to perform any law enforcement role, such as making arrests or seizing drugs, or engaging with immigrants other than transporting them to various immigration facilities. I have to help.
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A law that dates back more than a century known as “posse comitatus” bars domestic law enforcement troops from active duty without authorization. Other laws and regulations further specify that the military may not participate in activities such as arrests and searches. According to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service.
President Trump said in an executive order Monday, however, that he would decide within 90 days whether to apply the Insurrection Act to the U.S.-Mexico border, which allows active-duty troops locally to enforce the law. will be able to use
Federal resources along the U.S. southern border have been strained for years amid an influx of migrants.
The number of immigrants crossing the southern border has recently declined — between 1,100 and 1,300 immigrants cross the border illegally per day, according to a Homeland Security official.
But by adding more Pentagon officials, sources expect Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has been helping along the border, to focus back inland on arresting undocumented immigrants already inside the United States. can go
