Trump says 15,000 US troops could be sent to southern border
● President eyes midterm elections as he ramps up migrant ‘crisis’ talk
President Donald Trump says the number of troops deployed to the Us-mexican border could reach 15,000 – roughly double the number the Pentagon said it currently plans for a mission whose dimensions are shifting daily.
The Pentagon says “more than 7,000” troops were being sent to the south-west border to support Customs and Border Protection agents. Officials said that number could reach a maximum of about 8,000 under present plans.
The troop numbers have been changing at a dizzying pace, with Trump drawing a hard line on immigration in the lead-up to next week’s midterm elections.
Just last week officials were indicating that about 800 to 1,000 might be sent. On Monday, officials announced that about 5,200 were being deployed. The next day, the air force general running the operation said more than the initially announced total were going, and pointedly rejected a news report that it could reach 14,000, saying that was “not consistent with what’s actually being planned”. General Terrence O’shaughnessy told reporters the number would exceed the initial contingent of 5,200, but he offered no estimate of the eventual total.
Just 24 hours later, Trump thrust new uncertainty into the picture, catching the Pentagon by surprise.
With his eyes squarely on Tuesday’s contests, Trump has rushed a series of immigration declarations, promises and actions as he tries to mobilise supporters to retain Republican control of Congress. His own Republican campaign in 2016 concentrated on border fears, and that’s his focus in the final week of the midterm fight.
“As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out,” Trump said. “We have about 5,800. We’ll go up to anywhere between 10,000 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border.”
Later Trump said:“we have to have a wall of people.”
His comments were the latest twist in a story that has pushed the Pentagon unhappily into the political space, prompting questions about whether defence secretary Jim Mattis was allowing the military to be leveraged as a political stunt. “We don’t do stunts,” Mattis said.
Trump rejected the idea he was “fearmongering” or using the issue for political purposes, but his escalating rhetoric in the waning days of the campaign season calls that denial into question.
Trump has railed against illegal immigration, including several caravans of migrants from Central America slowly moving on foot toward the US border.
The caravan of an estimated 4,000 people is still nearly 1,000 miles from the border. Several smaller groups, esti- mated at a combined 1,200 people, are farther away.
As he seeks to stoke concerns about illegal immigration ahead of the midterm elections, Trump tweeted a video alleging Democrats were responsible for allowing a homicidal immigrant into the US. He provided no evidence supporting that claim.
It was reminiscent of the infamous “Willie Horton” ad used against Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and condemned as racist.
Horton, a convicted killer in the 1988 ad, raped a woman while out of prison on weekend leave. As Massachusetts governor, Dukakis supported the leave program. Dukakis went on to lose to Republican George HW Bush.
In his tweet, Trump highlighted the case of Luis Bracamontes, a twice-deported immigrant from Mexico sentenced to death in California for killing two police officers.
The 53-second spot includes expletives uttered by Bracamontes during his trial as he professed regret at not killing more officials.