A closer look at the troops headed for the border
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump ordered troops to the border in response to a caravan of migrants slowly making its way through Mexico toward the United States and still about 900 miles away, with many dropping out. Here’s what we know so far about the military’s mission:
WHAT TROOPS ARE INVOLVED?
More than 7,000 active duty troops have been told to deploy to Texas, Arizona and California. They are a mix of forces, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and public affairs units.
As of Friday, one week after the Pentagon acknowledged that Defense Secretary Jim Mattis had approved a Department of Homeland Security request for military support at the border, the troop deployment was still unfolding, with about 3,500 at staging bases in the Southwest. Of those, about 2,250 active duty troops are at staging bases in Texas, about 1,100 Marines are at Camp Pendleton in California and fewer than 200 are in Arizona. About 100 troops are actually on the border, at the port crossing near McAllen, Texas.
WHAT IS THEIR ROLE ON THE BORDER?
The Pentagon is adamant that active duty troops will not do law enforcement, which they are forbidden from doing under the Posse Comitatus Act in the Constitution. Troops can’t arrest people at the border. Their main job will be to support the Border Patrol.
This means the military will transport border patrol agents to and along the border, help them erect additional vehicle barriers and fencing along the border, assist them with communications and provide some security for border agent camps.
WILL TROOPS BE ARMED?
Yes, many of them will be, mainly for self-protection.
Military police at the border will be armed, although they will have nonlethal options for dealing with unexpected conflict. Pentagon officials say they are planning for a worstcase scenario of violence that could force soldiers to rely on their training to make split-second decisions to defend themselves or civilians. MPs might, for example, be dispatched to provide armed security for military engineers placing barricades at locations where there are no border patrol agents to provide protection.
One day after Trump suggested soldiers on the southwest border may open fire if migrants throw rocks at them, he insisted Friday that he meant that rockthrowers would be arrested. “I didn’t say ‘shoot,’” he told reporters at the White House. Either way, his scenario of violence captures in a nutshell the risk of using active duty troops for domestic security: Their mission does not include confronting migrants, but some may be unable to avoid it.
DOES CONGRESS SUPPORT THIS MISSION?
With members of Congress focused mainly on Tuesday’s midterm elections, reaction has been mild. A group of senior House Democrats wrote a letter to Mattis on Thursday expressing opposition to the military mission and demanding answers on its cost. The deployment of active duty troops, they wrote, “only exacerbates the potential to unnecessarily escalate the situation.”