Pentagon to send 2,100 additional troops to Mexican border

The US Department of Defense will send 2,100 troops to the Mexican border, to bolster the 4,500 military personnel already there. The move comes amid Democratic Party criticism of President Trump’s immigration policies.

The deployment, announced Wednesday, will consist of 1,000 Texas National Guard personnel and 1,100 active-duty troops. Like those already in place at the border, these troops will not directly engage with illegal immigrants, and will instead provide logistical and surveillance support to border security officers and agents.

Acting Defense Secretary Richard Spencer approved the deployment on Tuesday night, following a request from the Trump administration.

Though troops have been deployed to the border since last April, the latest deployment comes after a spike in illegal crossings. The Department of Homeland Security said that more than 144,000 arrests were made in May, the highest monthly total in 13 years. According to Customs and Border Protection figures, 694,000 illegal immigrants have been apprehended this financial year so far, compared to 404,000 in the entirety of 2018.

Deploying more troops is just the latest action in the Trump administration’s ongoing border crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents swept through major cities last weekend conducting deportation raids, at the president’s direction. 

In addition, a new rule announced by the Justice Department on Monday will see asylum seekers who pass through a ‘safe’ country en route to the US automatically be denied asylum. The rule, expected to come into effect on Thursday, will affect Central American migrants who cross Mexico first before claiming asylum at the American border.

Trump’s immigration policies have been met with backlash from his opponents. After a DHS report earlier this month revealed overcrowded and unsanitary conditions at illegal immigrant detention centers, Democratic lawmakers toured some of these facilities and criticized the “inhumane” conditions within, while several progressives compared them to Nazi “concentration camps.”

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