The Biden administration announced plans to deploy 1,500 members of the US military to the southern border ahead of an expected surge of undocumented migrants once pandemic-era restrictions are lifted later this month.
(Bloomberg) — The Biden administration announced plans to deploy 1,500 members of the US military to the southern border ahead of an expected surge of undocumented migrants once pandemic-era restrictions are lifted later this month.
The Department of Homeland Security made the request to the Pentagon, and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved the deployment Tuesday.
The military members will not serve in a law enforcement capacity and will not interact with migrants. Instead, they will be given administrative jobs now being performed by Department of Homeland Security personnel, who would then be freed up for enforcement duties.
“For 90 days, these 1,500 military personnel will fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support,” until US Customs and Border Protection can obtain contractors, Brigadier General Pat Ryder, a Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
“Military personnel will not directly participate in law enforcement activities. This deployment to the border is consistent with other forms of military support to DHS over many years,” Ryder added.
DHS said in a statement said the requested military members would “augment the 2,500 military personnel currently providing support at the Southwest Border.”
President Joe Biden last month gave the Pentagon emergency powers to assist DHS in efforts related to drug trafficking, providing the authority for the move, which was first reported by Fox News. The military personnel would come from active duty Army units, the network reported. The deployment comes in addition to National Guard troops already supporting DHS at the border.
Troops were also deployed to the southern border under President Donald Trump, who sent more than 5,000 active-duty members of the military ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
“We would love to be able to have more resources at the border to do the critical work that is needed,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing Tuesday. She said the administration was taking the step “because Congress has not acted.”
The US is bracing for a wave of migrants to attempt crossing the border when Covid-19-related restrictions that enable the rapid removal of undocumented migrants — known as Title 42 — lapse on May 11, when the national emergency declared during the pandemic expires. US Customs and Border Protection said the agency is preparing for as many 10,000 migrants to attempt to cross the border every day once the restrictions lift.
In recent weeks, the administration unveiled a new rule that restricts asylum claims for those who entered the US illegally, did not schedule an asylum appointment and did not seek asylum in countries they transited through to get to the US. The new rules are aimed at discouraging illegal migration or convincing travelers coming north to seek asylum in other countries along the way.
On Tuesday night, the White House said that the US and Mexico were announcing a series of steps “address the humanitarian situation caused by unprecedented migration flows at our shared border and in the region.”
The measures include increasing joint efforts to combat human smugglers and the approval by Biden “to move forward with a presidential permit” on the expansion of the Calexico East Land border station in Southern California.
The actions were announced after a meeting in Mexico City between Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Homeland Security Adviser Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall.
(Updates with White House statement, in final two paragraphs.)
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