Thousands of additional active-duty U.S. troops are being deployed to the country’s southern border with Mexico, just two days after President Donald Trump ordered the military to step up its presence in the region, according to officials familiar with the matter.
There are already about 2,200 forces on active duty on the border as part of Joint Task Force-North, a U.S. Northern Command border mission headquartered in El Paso, Texas.
They help support the work of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, primarily performing logistical and clerical tasks such as data entry, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.
It’s not yet clear which ones, but an initial wave will include about 1,500 troops.
“The first operations for them should begin in the next 24-48 hours, they are moving now, while we are here,” a senior military official explained to reporters on Wednesday (22).
Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said he has ordered the Department of Defense to “begin augmenting its capabilities” with 1,500 ground personnel “as well as helicopters with associated teams and intelligence analysts to support increased detection and monitoring efforts.” .
Salesses also confirmed the previous report from CNN that U.S. Transportation Command had been instructed to prepare to use U.S. military assets, including military aircraft, for immigrant repatriation flights.
The senior military official noted that four aircraft in total — two C-17s and two C-130s — are being sent to San Diego and El Paso to support repatriation flights.
The aircrews of these aircraft are not included in the 1,500 ground troops deployed.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also confirmed the number to reporters at the White House on Wednesday.
“President Trump signed an executive order – 1500 additional troops to the southern border of the United States. This builds on his action on day one… to direct the Department of Defense to make homeland security a core mission of the agency,” Leavitt announced.
The Trump administration to mobilize up to 10,000 active-duty troops immediately, triggering confusion inside the Pentagon, one of the officials and another person familiar with the matter told CNN.
Military officials have rejected this because they believe sending so many troops to the border at once could take them away from other mission requirements in other parts of the world and strain resources, the first official stressed.
Even more active-duty troops are expected to be deployed to the border in the coming weeks and months, one of the officials said, with this first wave setting the stage for a larger military footprint.
