We’ll put them in tents – Trump
MIGRANT CARAVAN: TROOPS DEPLOYED TO BORDER
US hardens stance on immigration ahead of November 6 midterm elections.
The US said on Monday it will send more than 5 200 troops to help secure the border with Mexico, a far larger-than-expected deployment as President Donald Trump hardens his stance on immigration ahead of November 6 midterm elections.
The deployment will create an active duty force comparable in size to the US military contingent in Iraq, as Trump’s administration draws attention to a caravan of migrants that is trekking through Mexico toward the US.
General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of US Northern Command, said 800 troops were already en route to the Texas border and more were headed to the borders in California and Arizona.
“The president has made it clear that border security is national security,” O’Shaughnessy said, as he detailed a much larger deployment than the 800 to 1 000 troops predicted by US officials last week.
O’Shaughnessy said some soldiers would be armed although it was unclear who, beyond US military police, might need those weapons. US officials have stressed that the troops would not police the border and instead carry out support roles like building tents and barricades, and flying US customs personnel to locations along the border.
Trump railed against illegal immigration to win the 2016 US presidential election and has seized on the caravan of Central American migrants at campaign rallies in the run-up to next week’s vote, firing up support for his Republican Party.
Trump said the US would build “tent cities” to house migrants seeking asylum, rather than releasing them while they await court decisions.
“We’re going to put tents up all over the place. We’re not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars – we’re going to have tents,” he told Fox News.
Trump said detaining asylum seekers while their cases were being decided would discourage others from following suit.
If the Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives or the Senate, it could become much harder for Trump to pursue his policy agenda in his remaining two years in office.
According to a Pew Research Centre survey conducted in late September and early October, 75% of Republican voters said illegal immigration was a very big problem, compared with 19% of Democratic voters.
Although Trump’s supporters in Congress praised the deployment of troops, the American Civil Liberties Union derided it as a political stunt.
“President Trump has chosen just before midterm elections to force the military into furthering his anti-immigrant agenda of fear and division,” said Shaw Drake, policy counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union Border Rights Centre in El Paso, Texas.
Trump said on Twitter on Monday that the military would be waiting for the procession – suggesting a far more direct role in confronting the migrants than the Pentagon described. “Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,” he tweeted. – Reuters