Washington-El Pentagon is sending more than 2,000 additional troops of active service to the border between the United States and Mexico, since President Donald Trump seeks to tighten illegal immigration and fulfill a central promise of his campaign, US officials said on Saturday.
His Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegesh, ordered elements of a combat team from the Stryker Brigade and a general support aviation battalion for the mission, announced the Pentagon. The forces will arrive along the border of almost 2,000 miles in the coming weeks.
The Department of Defense declaration did not specify the size of the deployment, although Fort Carson said he was sending 2,400 soldiers of the second Stryker Brigade Combat, 4th Infantry Division.
The troops “will carry out directed missions requested by the president to ensure the southern border and protect and defend the territorial integrity of the United States,” said Fort Carson in a statement.
Strykers are personnel carriers with medium wheels.
There are already around 9,200 US troops in total on the southern border, including 4,200 deployed under federal orders and around 5,000 national guard troops under the control of governors.
The new troops “will reinforce and expand current border security operations to seal the border and protect the territorial integrity of the United States,” said the Pentagon.
Trump is determined to expand the role of the military in his effort to close the border and send to migrants detained back to their countries of origin.
Military personnel have been sent to the border almost continuously since the 1990s to help address migration, drug trafficking and transnational crime.
Washington Post reported for the first time about the new deployment.
