Acting Defense Secretary Richard Spencer has authorized the additional deployment of 1,100 active-duty troops and 1,000 Texas National Guard soldiers to the U.S.-Mexico border, the Pentagon announced today.
They will join some 2,500 active-duty and 2,000 National Guard troops already there, for a total force of 6,600 on the border mission.
The new active-duty troops will arrive “in the next several weeks” and will provide “aerial surveillance, operational, logistical, and administrative support” to Customs and Border Patrol, Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Chris Mitchell said in a statement.
The increase in active-duty forces is required due to a “shortfall in volunteer National Guard personnel” conducting the same missions, Mitchell said.
The impending mobilization of the additional Texas National Guard troops was already announced late last month by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, and the Department of Homeland Security sent a formal request for the extra Guard troops to the Pentagon earlier this month.
Some 250 of the new Guard troops will assist civilian law enforcement authorities at ports of entry and airports in Texas, Mitchell said, and the other 750 will help Customs and Border Protection staff at two “temporary adult migrant holding facilities” in Texas.
Civilian law enforcement will still supervise the migrants, Mitchell said, with the Guard troops providing “operational, logistical and administrative support” at the holding camps.
Article originally published on POLITICO Magazine