The US will send up to 1,500 active soldiers to the border with Mexico

In the coming days, the United States will send hundreds of soldiers to its border with Mexico to control immigration, the Donald Trump government announced.

The United States will dispatch up to 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border in the coming days, administration officials announced Wednesday, setting in motion plans detailed in executive orders President Donald Trump signed shortly after taking office to step up the immigration control.

Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses is expected to sign the deployment orders on Wednesday, but it is not immediately clear which troops or units will go, and whether the number could fluctuate. It remains to be seen whether the military will end up enforcing laws, which would put it in an entirely new role.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the announcement has not yet been made. The forces are expected to be used to support border patrol agents, with logistics, transportation and barrier construction.

The forces are expected to be used to support border patrol agents, with logistics, transportation and barrier construction. They have performed similar functions in the past, when both Trump and former President Joe Biden sent active-duty troops to the border.

Troops are prohibited by law from performing law enforcement duties at the border, but that could change. Trump has ordered by executive order that the next defense secretary and the next national security chief report within 90 days whether they believe an 1807 law called the Anti-Insurrection Act should be invoked. That would allow those soldiers to be used in civilian law enforcement on American soil.

The widely anticipated deployment, which occurred in Trump's first week in office, was an early step in his long-announced plan to expand the use of the military along the border. In one of his first orders on Monday, Trump directed the defense secretary to develop a plan to “seal the borders” and repel “illegal mass migration.”

On Tuesday, as Trump fired Coast Guard Commander Adm. Linda Fagan, the service announced it was dispatching more ships, planes and personnel to “America's Gulf” — another nod to the president's directive to rename the Gulf. from Mexico.

Trump said during his inaugural address on Monday that “I will declare a national emergency on our southern border. “All illegal entries will be stopped immediately, and we will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens to the places they came from.”

In his first term, Trump also ordered active-duty troops to the border to assist the Department of Homeland Security and border control agents in response to a migrant caravan slowly making its way through Mexico toward the United States in 2018.

In executive orders signed Monday, Trump suggested the military would help the Department of Homeland Security with “detention space, transportation (including aircraft), and other logistical services.”

The U.S. military cannot perform law enforcement functions under the Posse Comitatus Act, a 19th-century federal law. Therefore, they cannot arrest or detain people at the border unless the president acts to invoke the Anti-Insurrection Act.

The Anti-Insurrection Act allows presidents to call up active-duty or reserve military units to respond to riots in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by courts.

During the 2018 deployment, more than 7,000 active-duty troops were deployed to Texas, Arizona and California, including military police, an assault helicopter battalion, various communications, medical and headquarters units, combat engineers, planners and units. of public affairs.

At the time, the Pentagon insisted that active-duty soldiers would not perform law enforcement duties. Therefore, they spent much of their time transporting border patrol agents to and along the border, helping them erect additional vehicle barriers and fences along the border, assisting them with communications, and providing some security for border agent camps.

The military also provided border patrol agents with medical care, prepackaged meals and temporary housing.

Typically, in deployments to the border in support of the Department of Homeland Security, Pentagon officials request specific details from the department about what needs to be done, and military leaders then decide which troops should go and how many.