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SAN DIEGO (AP) – As thousands of migrants in a caravan of asylum seekers from Central America converge on the US threshold, they will not find armed US soldiers on guard.
Instead, they will see cranes installing massive metal bar panels and troops winding accordion wire around gates while military helicopters fly overhead, carrying border patrol officers to and from locations on the ground. along the Canada-US border.
Indeed, US military troops are prohibited from performing policing duties.
In addition, most of the troops are in Texas, hundreds of kilometers from the caravan that began arriving this week in Tijuana, on the border between Mexico and California, after having walked and hitched last month.
Nevertheless, for many migrants, gates and barbed wire were an impressive show of force.
Angel Ulloa was on the beach in Tijuana, where a wall of metal bars over 20 feet high crossed the sand and plunged into the Pacific. He saw teams from the US side placing reels of barbed wire on top.
A border police officer dressed in camouflage and armed with an assault rifle – part of a tactical unit deployed when there was an increased threat – stepped into the sand in below the place where the men worked. A small border patrol boat hovered off.
"It's too much of a security to face modest people who just want to work," said Ulloa, a 23-year-old electrician from Choloma, Honduras, who joined the caravan to try to get to town for the first time. his stay in the United States.
Now he and his two friends were rethinking their plans. They tried to apply for a job at a Wal-Mart store in Tijuana, but were told that they needed a Mexican work permit. They planned to ask for asylum in Mexico but did not know how to give up their dream of making money.
"We are always checking things out," he said.
On Friday, people walking in one of the world's busiest border crossings in Mexico passed by two marines aboard a 20-foot aerial platform installing a razor wire overhead. 39, a turnstile.
Sgt. Of the nearby army Eric Ziegler stood guard with another soldier. Both were military police officers charged with protecting the Marines during their work.
The 24-year-old Pittsburgh soldier spent nine months in Afghanistan. "It's very different out there, obviously, it's a lot more dangerous," Ziegler said.
He said that he was surprised to receive his deployment orders sending him to the US-Mexico border.
"But I'm happy to go where I need me," he added as a man walking with shopping bags headed for Tijuana.
The US military has deployed 5,800 troops on active duty at the US-Mexico border.
Until now, we are not expecting more, despite the initial assessment of President Donald Trump that it took between 10,000 and 15,000 people to secure the border against what is wrong. 39, he called an "invasion" of migrants. In the caravan of several thousand people, most are families, including hundreds of children.
Another 2,100 National Guard soldiers have also been deployed since April as part of a separate mission. Like military troops, they are not allowed to detain illegal smugglers. Instead, they monitor the cameras and help erect barriers.
Of the 5,800 soldiers and navies, more than 2,800 are in Texas, about 1,500 in Arizona and 1,300 in California. All branches of the US military, with the exception of the Coast Guard, are barred from performing law enforcement duties.
This means that there will be no visible demonstration of armed troops, said Major-General Scott McCullough, adding that the mission was to provide support for customs and protection borders.
"Soldiers installing border wires and gates at entry points will be the most visible," he said.
Marines and soldiers share the same tasks in California and Arizona. These include the construction of tents, the installation of showers, the preparation of meals for troops working at the border and the protection of the military police.
There are no tents or camps set up to house migrants, McCullough said. Doctors are on hand to treat soldiers and border patrol officers, not migrants, cuts, bruises and other problems.
Combat engineers – whose tasks on the battlefield include the establishment of tactical obstacles to prevent the enemy from moving freely – use their expertise to string wires on the walls of the border and erect temporary fencing, said McCullough.
Construction engineers have been tasked with welding barriers and moving shipping containers for them to serve as walls.
In Laredo, Texas, about 100 soldiers put three layers of razor wire along the Rio Grande, working on banks during the day and on bridges at night to minimize the disruption of cross-border traffic.
The current mission is scheduled for December 15 at the moment. We do not know how much it will cost and the military leaders refused to provide an estimate.
Critics have questioned the opportunity to use the army at the border where there is no noticeable security threat. Since the November 6 elections, Trump has spoken little about the issue and no threat to the border has materialized.
Some border communities fear that barricades will frighten Mexican buyers. Nogales, Arizona City Council halved the bonus proposal for all employees, fearing that the army's presence will affect sales tax revenues after The army had closed two lanes at its frontier post.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis defended the deployment during a visit to the Texas border this week, saying that in some ways it provided a good training for the war.
Suyapa Reyes, 35, said she did not understand why she would be perceived as a threat. Reyes, his mother, his 12-year-old daughter and his 16-year-old son left Honduras with the caravan on October 13, fleeing violence and poverty in his hometown of Olanchito de Oro.
She does not want to come home after such a long drive, but if she can not get asylum and the border looks too dangerous to cross, she said she does not want to go home. will have no other choice.
"I will not risk my life or my safety or that of my children," she said.
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