The Pentagon will send 1,500 active-duty troops to the Southwest border by the end of this month to help achieve one of President Trump’s key goals of stemming the flow of immigrants into the United States, a Pentagon official said Wednesday.
The new units will join the 2,500 Army Reserve and National Guard troops who have been called to active duty in recent months to support federal law enforcement officers. Their duties include detection and monitoring, data entry, training, transportation and maintenance.
It is unclear what role the 4,000 troops will play under the Trump administration.
President Trump signed an executive order Monday giving the military an explicit role in immigration enforcement. It also directs the Department of Defense to prepare a plan to “secure our borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling all forms of aggression.”
This directive would likely conflict with an 1870s law called the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally limited the use of regular federal troops for domestic security purposes.
The move, initially reported by Fox News, comes as border conditions are currently fairly calm, with border crossings declining sharply after the Biden administration took major steps to limit migration.
