The Pentagon is sending as much as 5,050 further troops to the U.S.-Mexico border at the same time as illegal border crossings have sharply fallen in latest weeks.
Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered a Stryker brigade fight crew (SBCT) and a normal assist aviation battalion to “bolster military support in securing the U.S. – Mexico border,” Pentagon press secretary Sean Parnell mentioned in a press release Saturday.
Every SBCT consists of roughly 4,400 troopers, whereas the aviation battalion has roughly 650 troops.
The forces will arrive alongside the almost 2,000-mile border within the coming weeks, the official added. They didn’t say the place the troops could be despatched particularly.
This deployment comes after President Trump, instantly upon getting into workplace in January, declared a nationwide emergency on the southern border and signed a quantity of government orders meant to crack down on unlawful crossings. As a part of the hassle, he has turned to the navy to bolster safety within the area, fly migrants out of america and home them at bases.
Trump had already ordered 1,600 Marines to the border in January, becoming a member of 2,500 service members already there previous to the brand new Trump administration.
The latest deployment might swell the variety of service members on the bottom on the border to only lower than 10,000.
The latest deployments come as unlawful crossings on the southern border are down 94 % from the identical interval final yr, Mike Banks, chief of the Border Patrol, advised CBS Information final week.
And Division of Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem final week revealed that Customs and Border Safety had apprehended solely 200 individuals on the southern border on Feb. 22, the bottom single-day quantity in additional than 15 years.
Such figures appear to be at odds with messaging from the Trump administration, with officers insisting the state of affairs on the southern border is an “invasion.”
Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi, in an immigration coverage memo issued when she took workplace early final month, wrote that illegal border crossings and unlawful migration into america “have reached record levels, resulting in a substantial and unacceptable threat to our national security and public safety.”
