Trump to send 800-plus troops to southern border

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is planning to dispatch 800 or more active-duty troops to the southern border at the direction of a president who has sought to transform fears about immigration into electoral gains in the midterms as a caravan of thousands of migrants makes its way through Mexico.

Defence Secretary Jim Mattis is expected to sign an order sending the troops to the border, bolstering National Guard forces already there, a U.S. official said Thursday. The action comes as U.S. President Donald Trump has spent recent days calling attention to a caravan of several thousand Central American migrants slowly making their way by foot into southern Mexico.

“To those in the Caravan, turnaround,” Trump tweeted Thursday. “We are not letting people into the United States illegally. Go back to your Country and if you want, apply for citizenship like millions of others are doing!”

Trump, who has claimed without any apparent basis in fact that “Middle Easterners” were among the shrinking caravan of Central American migrants, earlier Thursday tweeted, “Democrat inspired laws make it tough for us to stop people at the border” and said he was using the military for what he called a “National Emergency.”

The additional troops would provide logistical and other support to the Border Patrol, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a plan that had not yet been finalized.

It’s not unusual for the National Guard to help with border security. Although active-duty troops are sometimes called on for domestic emergencies like hurricanes or floods, they rarely deploy to the southern border. Fears of militarizing the border were fanned by a May 1997 incident in which a Marine on a counter-narcotics mission shot to death an 18-year-old who was herding goats in Redford, Tx.

In the current situation, activeduty troops will not be on armed security missions that could lead to a similar incident.

The additional members of the military would assist the Border Patrol by providing things such as vehicles, tents and equipment. There already are about 2,000 National Guard troops there under a previous Pentagon arrangement. The new troops would be active-duty forces, the official said.

Trump, who made fear about immigrants a major theme of his 2016 election campaign, has been eager to make it a top issue heading into the Nov. 6 midterm elections, which will determine which party controls Congress. The president and senior White House officials have long believed the issue is key to turning out his ardent base of supporters.

At rallies and on Twitter, Trump has tried to paint the Democrats as pro-illegal immigration, even claiming, with no evidence, that Democrats had organized and paid for the caravan.

The sprawling caravan of migrants —once estimated by the United Nations to be more than 7,000 strong — is hoping to make it to the United States. Most are Hondurans, seeking to escape poverty and violence.

The caravan swelled dramatically soon after crossing the Mexican border on Oct. 19, but sickness, fear and police harassment have whittled down its numbers. Since entering Mexico at its southernmost tip, the group has advanced roughly 95 miles.

Trump earlier this year ordered the deployment of National Guard members to the U.S.-Mexico border to respond to a spike in illegal border crossings.