Border troops ready to leave?
Military backs off report that duty will end before Christmas
The 5,800 active-duty troops stationed at the U.S.Mexico border had no reason to doubt it. Their work stringing concertina wire and building earthen barriers along the Rio Grande would not last much longer.
Their commanding general was planning to send them home before Christmas, and on Friday he said so. On Monday, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said some units might leave as soon as this week.
Now, things aren’t so clear.
On Tuesday, U.S. Army North backtracked from Buchanan’s Yuletide optimism.
“No specific timeline for redeployment has been determined,” the San Antoniobased command said. “We will provide more details as they become available.”
It wasn’t clear what prompted the about-face or when the soldiers might pack up and head home. Army North had no comment beyond its one-paragraph statement. A Pentagon spokesman did not respond to emails and phone calls. Buchanan, who was visiting troops in California, was unavailable.
Buchanan leads the active-duty border mission that President Donald Trump ordered in late October, in response to several thousand Central American men, women and children making their way through Mexico to seek asylum in the United States.
Buchanan told the San Antonio Express-News on Friday that much of the work done by Army engineers to fortify points of entry along the Southwest border had been completed.
He said the end date for the mission was Dec. 15 — and that no one had told him otherwise.
“That’s the completion of the mission, so we will redeploy in concert with that,” he said
Asked if his troops could expect to be home by Christmas, he replied, “Well, yeah. The end date for the mission is 15 December, which is a week before Christmas, so sure, that’s exactly right.”
Buchanan went further Monday, telling Politico that some soldiers could begin returning to their bases this week once their duties were completed.
The president ordered the border deployment a week before the Nov. 6 midterm election, and some critics, including former high-ranking military commanders, have called it a stunt intended to motivate Republican voters. Retired Army Gen. Martin Dempsey, a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the mission as “a wasteful deployment of overstretched soldiers and Marines.”
Defense Secretary James Mattis, however, insisted last week that the operation was legal, ethical and “great training.”
By law, active-duty soldiers cannot perform law enforcement duties. The combat engineers, MPs and other personnel are on a logistical support mission: to fortify the border, build roads and transport federal Border Patrol agents as necessary.
Retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who once headed the U.S. Strategic Command, said the approaching holiday season should have no bearing on how long the troops stay.
“It’s an emotional issue,” he said. “During World War II, people thought the war would be over before Christmas of 1945 and ’44. But from a military perspective, they have a job to do. Get the job done. When the job’s done, you go home – not before.”
Buchanan said Friday that as needs arise, he might move troops from one place to another “to speed up the work.” But he said he had no intention of keeping people on the border any longer than necessary.
“I am not going to keep them here artificially all the way to the 15th of December,” he said. “When they’re done with their part of the operation, I do, in fact, intend to send them home.”