Trump: Troops up to 15,000

President says Mexico not doing enough to halt caravan

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the number of military troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexican border could reach 15,000 — roughly double the number the Pentagon previously estimated.

The Pentagon said “more than 7,000” troops were being sent to the Southwest border to support the Customs and Border Protection agents. Officials said that number could reach a maximum of about 8,000 under present plans.

Last week officials were indicating that about 800 to 1,000 troops 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 he pointedly rejected a news report that it could reach 14,000, saying that was “not consistent with what’s actually being planned.”

Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the commander of U.S. Northern Command, told reporters that 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.

“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, [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and everybody else at the border.”

His comment prompted questions about whether Defense Secretary James Mattis was allowing the military to be leveraged as a political stunt.

“We don’t do stunts,” Mattis said Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Trump’s complaints that Mexico is not doing enough to stop a caravan of migrants are being contradicted by his own White House.

“The Caravans are made up of some very tough fighters and people,” Trump wrote Wednesday on Twitter. “Fought back hard and viciously against Mexico at Northern Border before breaking through. Mexican soldiers hurt, were unable, or unwilling to stop Caravan. Should stop them before they reach our Border, but won’t!”

But White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Wednesday specifically praised Mexico for stopping the migrants from getting rides. “Mexico has stepped up in an unprecedented way,” Sanders told Fox News. “They have helped stop a lot of the transportation means of these individuals in these caravans, forcing them walking. They have helped us in new ways to slow this down, to break this up and keep it from moving as aggressively toward the United

States.”

The Mexican government, has, in fact, taken a fairly contradictory stance on helping or hindering the first caravan.

For the first week of the caravan, Mexican federal police enforced obscure safety rules, forcing migrants off paid mini-buses, citing insurance regulations. They also stopped some overloaded pickups carrying migrants and forced them to get off. But in recent days, officials from Mexico’s immigrant-protection agency have organized rides for straggling women and children on the caravan as a humanitarian effort.

And police have routinely stood by as the travelers piled aboard freight trucks.

But the first caravan of about 4,000 migrants — which planned to take a day of rest Wednesday in Juchitan, about 900 miles from the nearest U.S. border crossing — is only the start.

A second, smaller group of 1,000 or so people was trailing some 250 miles behind.

That group on Sunday tore down a chain-link fence erected by Guatemalan authorities to block access to a bridge over the river at its border with Mexico, according to the Los Angeles Times. Another clash left one migrant dead and dozens wounded in a confrontation between the migrants and authorities, the newspaper said.

A third group of travelers from El Salvador had already made it to Guatemala, and on Wednesday a fourth group of about 700 Salvadorans set out from the capital, San Salvador,

with plans to walk to the U.S. border, 1,500 miles away.

Representatives of the first group sought Wednesday to negotiate use of dozens of buses to carry the migrants hundreds of miles ahead.

But as of the afternoon, there was no outward sign they’d had success in finding buses to carry them.

After bedding down at a city-owned property on the outskirts of the southern city of Juchitan, the migrants wandered around looking for something to eat. Loudspeaker announcements discussed bathroom use and a prohibition on charging money to power their cellphones.

Red Cross personnel bandaged the swollen feet of Honduran farmer Omar Lopez, who had been pounding the hot asphalt of highways every day for the past two weeks after spending nights on concrete sidewalks with just a thin sheet of plastic for cover.

“We are waiting to see if they are going to help us out with buses, to continue the trip,” said Lopez, 27.

Organizers say the buses, if they do materialize, would take the migrants to Mexico City for meetings with legislators, not to the still-distant U.S. border, though some would probably continue to the border after reaching the capital.

In another tweet Wednesday, Trump asserted that the caravans include “some very bad thugs and gang members” and urged them to “TURN AROUND!” He referred to his order to increase the number

of troops deployed to the border to assist border agents.

In the run-up to Tuesday’s midterm elections, Trump has repeatedly sought to focus attention on migrant caravans, using them as a symbol of problems with the U.S. immigration system and blaming Democrats for a failure to pass legislation in the Republican-led Congress.

He has also promised to end so-called catch-and-release policies by erecting tent cities to hold those crossing illegally. And this week he proposed issuing an executive order to unilaterally end birthright citizenship for the children of non-U.S. citizens.

Trump’s comments about sending more troops left some in the Pentagon scratching their heads. Officials said they had no plans to deploy as many as 15,000 troops.

The number conceivably could reach 10,000, counting the 2,100 National Guard soldiers who have been operating along the border for months as part of a separate but related mission. The number of active-duty troops tapped for deployment stood at 7,000 as of Wednesday but could reach 8,000.

A deployment of 15,000 would raise the military commitment on the border to roughly the same level as in war-torn Afghanistan.