Umair
The Pentagon will send 1,500 active-duty troops to the southwestern border by the end of the month, a Defense Department official said on Wednesday, helping to fulfill one of President Trump’s main goals to stem the flow of migrants into the United States.
The new troops will join 2,500 Army Reserve and National Guard soldiers called to active duty in recent months to support federal law enforcement officials. Their missions include detection and monitoring, data entry, training, transportation and maintenance.
It is unclear what roles the 4,000 troops will now have under the Trump administration.
Mr. Trump on Monday signed an executive order that gave the military an explicit role in immigration enforcement. It also directed the Defense Department to come up with a plan “to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion.”
The directive is likely to clash with an 1870s law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally limits the use of regular federal troops for domestic policing purposes.
The move comes even as the current state of the border is fairly calm, with crossings having fallen sharply after the Biden administration took major steps to limit migration.
