Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Pentagon will begin deploying as many as 1,500 active-duty troops to help secure the southern border in the coming days, U.S. officials said Wednesday, setting into motion plans that President Donald Trump laid out in executive orders shortly after he assumed office. to crack down on immigration.
Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesse was expected to sign the deployment orders on Wednesday, but it was not yet clear which troops or units would go, and the total could fluctuate. It remains to be seen whether they end up doing law enforcement, which would put U.S. troops in a dramatic new role not done in recent history.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made public.
The active-duty forces would join the roughly 2,500 U.S. National Guard and reserve forces already there. There are currently no active troops working along the border.
The forces are expected to be used to support Border Patrol agents with logistics, transportation and construction of barriers. They have performed similar duties in the past, when both Trump and former President Joe Biden sent active duty troops to the border.
Troops are prohibited by law from performing law enforcement duties on the border, but that could change. Trump has ordered, through an executive order, that the incoming defense secretary and incoming homeland security chief report back within 90 days if they believe an 1807 law called the Insurrection Act should be invoked. It would allow those troops to be used in civilian law enforcement on American soil.
The highly anticipated deployment, which came in Trump’s first week in office, was an early step in his long-touted plan to expand the use of the military along the border. In one of his first orders on Monday, Trump directed the defense secretary to come up with a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “illegal mass migration.”
On Tuesday, just as Trump fired the Coast Guard commander, Adm. Linda Fagan, the service announced it was scrambling more cutters, aircraft and personnel to the “Gulf of America” — another nod to the president’s directive to rename the Gulf of Mexico.
Trump said during his inaugural address on Monday that “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will be immediately stopped and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places where they come.”
In his first term, Trump also ordered active troops to the border to assist the Department of Homeland Security and border control agents, in response to a caravan of migrants that slowly made its way through Mexico toward the United States in 2018.
In orders signed Monday, Trump suggested the military would assist DHS with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft) and other logistics services.”
Active-duty U.S. troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties under the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century federal law. So they can’t arrest or detain people at the border unless the president acts to invoke the Sedition Act.
The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call up reserve or active military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that cannot be reviewed by the courts.
During the 2018 deployment, more than 7,000 active duty troops were sent to Texas, Arizona and California, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and public affairs units.
At the time, the Pentagon was convinced that active duty troops would not be doing law enforcement. So they spent a lot of their time transporting Border Patrol agents to and along the border, helping them set up additional vehicle barriers and fencing along the border, helping them with communications, and providing some security for Border Agent camps.
The military also provided Border Patrol agents with medical care, prepackaged meals, and temporary housing.
Normally, in deployments to the border in support of the Department of Homeland Security, Pentagon officials request details from DHS about what needs to be accomplished, and military leaders then decide which troops to go and how many.
