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Washington (AP) – Active Duty Military Troops will start arriving at El Paso, Texas and San Diego Thursday night, in what defense officials said is the first batch of the new forces that were deployed to secure the southern border.
The Pentagon announced on Wednesday that about 1,500 troops were sent to the border this week as the department shrinks to set President Donald Trump’s executive order that required an immediate crash on immigration.
US officials said they expect additional troops to be ordered to deploy in the next few days as the defense and home country’s security leaders tighten requests for more support.
The officials said it is not yet clear how many more service members would be tapped in the near future, but they will include active service, National Guard and Reserves and come from land, air and marine forces. Other defense and military officials are estimated this week that the additional number used could be in thousands.
The troops announced on Wednesday include about 1,000 army soldiers from a number of units and 500 Marines from Camp Pendleton in California.
Officials said on Thursday that they expect the majority of them to be in El Paso – including Fort Bliss – or in San Diego before Friday, where they get their mission tasks and prepare to spread along the border. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to provide details of troop movements.
There were already about 2,500 guard and reserve forces that were deployed to the limit and the new 1,500 would add the total amount. But officials noted that given the length of the nearly 2,000 km long limit with Mexico, it will take further effort to help put large rolls of concert wire barriers in place and provide necessary transport, intelligence and other support to the border patrol.
From Thursday, there were still no requests for the use of military bases to house migrants or for troops to be used for law enforcement tasks.
