Mattis says he can use military on border
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Wednesday that the White House has given him explicit authority to use military troops to protect Customs and Border Protection personnel, with lethal force if necessary, at the southwest border.
Under certain circumstances, that could mean directing troops to temporarily detain migrants in the event of disorder or violence against border patrol agents. “This is minutes — not even hours” of potential detention, Mattis said, suggesting he wasn’t planning to use the military to operate migrant detention camps.
The mission thus far for the approximately 5,800 active-duty troops in the border area has mainly been to lay barbed wire and other barriers along the border and transport border patrol personnel. Mattis has stressed the need to keep the military away from civilian law enforcement roles such as arrests, forbidden under the Posse Comitatus Act. The law prohibits the federal government from using the armed forces in a domestic police role, except in cases and under circumstances specifically authorized by the Constitution or Congress.
The basis for the expanded legal authorities for Mattis is a belief by the Trump administration that the Central American migrant caravans moving toward the U.S. border pose a potential security threat.
On Tuesday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen visited a San Diego Pacific Coast beach to see newly installed razor wire wrapped around a towering border wall that cuts across the sand. She said there were as many as 500 criminals and gang member in the groups heading northward, though she refused to answer questions about how they were identified or what crimes they had committed.
Mattis emphasized that he would use his expanded authorities only in response to a specific, detailed request from Nielsen, and that none has yet been made.
“I now have the authority to do more. Now we’ll see what she asks me for,” he said.
Adamant that the military will remain within its legal limits, he said,“We are not doing law enforcement. We do not have arrest authority.”