The Pentagon deploys 3,750 troops on the southern border: NPR

US servicemen set up several rows of accordion wires along the banks of the Rio Grande near the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge on the US-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, in November.

Eric Gay / AP

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Eric Gay / AP

US servicemen install several rows of accordion wires along the banks of the Rio Grande, near the Juarez-Lincoln Bridge, on the US-Mexico border in Laredo, Texas, in November

Eric Gay / AP.

A further 3,750 men will be sent to the southern border to help set up gates and monitor crossing points, officials said. The new deployment will bring the total number of active duty soldiers to about 6,000.

In a tweet on Sunday, President Trump said that a "strong border security" was needed in the face of "caravans crossing the border." Mexico and to our country. "

The announcement of the arrival of new troops Sunday will come just days before Trump discusses border security measures during Tuesday's speech on the state of the United States. ;Union.

Acting Secretary of Defense Patrick Shanahan, announced Thursday that troops would be deployed to next month, said Tom Bowman of NPR. They will join the 2,300 active-duty soldiers already on the ground, which will bring about the same number of soldiers deployed in the fall. Two thousand and two hundred soldiers of the National Guard are also posted there.

"In the Pentagon, the people I talk to tell me, listen: it's a waste of money," Bowman said. Stringing razors is a job better suited to the National Guard, they say to Bowman; "you do not use active service troops for this." Military troops deployed at the border "are not allowed to apprehend migrants as border agents do," NBC News reported.

Last week, about 2,400 migrants left an urban shelter in Mexico City to travel to the US-Mexico border, Reuters report.

When Pentagon officials testified before the Armed Services Committee of the House last week, they did not mention the upcoming troop deployment. Congressman Adam Smith, who chairs the committee, issued a statement criticizing what he called a lack of transparency.

"I am deeply disturbed by the fact that the witnesses did not reveal the upcoming increase in the number of Guards, Reservists, and Servants on active duty, even though we asked them several times during a two-and-a-half-hour hearing of what would happen next, at the border, "writes Smith, echoing the concerns expressed in a letter to Shanahan. This omission raises the question of whether the increase in troops "is so unjustified that they can not defend an increase in the public workforce," he wrote.

Trump suggested Friday to announce an action on a border wall during the State of the Union speech. takes place on Tuesday. "I do not want to say it, but you will hear about the state of the Union and then you will see what will happen right after the state of the Union", a- he told the press.