[ad_1]
WASHINGTON – The number of US troops deployed on the Mexican border will eventually exceed 5,239, an official said, the military commander said.
General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy of the Air Force stated that "5,239 was not the top line", but rather an initial request from the Department of Homeland Security.
General O'Shaughnessy, commander of the US Northern Command, responsible for US territory, did not specify the maximum number of soldiers, but a defense official said that an additional 3,000 troops would be in reserve and could be sent later.
President Trump said he was sending US troops to the border to help prevent a caravan of Central American migrants from entering America. "It's an invasion of our country and our military is waiting for you!" Wrote Mr. Trump on Twitter on Twitter.
Detractors of the movement and congressional Democrats said that this deployment was a useless use of military resources and would remove them from their training work with external threats. Unlike natural disasters, many people said there was no universal agreement that caravans posed a threat, as Mr. Trump has repeatedly said.
"Troops as props," said Senator Richard Blumenthal (D., Conn.), A member of the Senate Committee on the Armed Forces, in a message posted Tuesday on Twitter. "Trump uses our brave soldiers in a blatant political stratagem at the border."
General O'Shaughnessy, who announced the initial figure at a DHS press conference on Monday, declined to say which units were deployed at the border for the mission, called Operation Faithful Patriot, or why he needed more troops. He added that 860 soldiers from seven US Army installations would be up in Texas by Thursday. This figure is expected to be at least 1,800.
The troops will deploy first to Texas, followed by Arizona and California. Defense officials announced that 1,700 people would travel to Arizona and 1,500 to California. Last week, when the Trump administration began deploying active US troops at the border, estimates were in the hundreds.
US troops will be deployed at ports of entry near US military facilities that will serve as their homes and allow them to travel to their missions. General O'Shaughnessy is one of the bases used, including the Lackland Air Force Base in Texas.
He added that no US active service troop had reached the border on Tuesday afternoon and that she did not know when she would arrive. With 2,000 National Guards deployed at the border earlier this year, the arrival of additional troops will exceed the combined US military footprint in Iraq and Syria. There was no cost estimate for the mission, he said.
Troops arrived in expectation of a caravan of about 4,000 asylum seekers for the most part, and of migrants walking to and from Mexico. A second caravan of more than 1,000 migrants from Central America made it to Mexico on Tuesday, a few hundred kilometers from the first big caravan.
The members of the nearest caravan should not arrive for several weeks if they do not pass by buses or cars. US troops have been tasked with trying to "reinforce" an unknown number of ports of entry and support customs and border protection personnel by building housing, providing medical assistance and airlift .
US troops are legally barred from carrying out law enforcement duties on US soil, but some troops will carry guns, General O'Shaughnessy said.
The unusual roll-out has become highly political, with immigration being one of the main problems in mid-term elections next week. Mr. Trump seized migrant caravans to rally supporters, calling them "invasion" of criminals and gang members who demand a military response from the United States.
The deployment decision, approved by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, said the troops "would support the Department of Homeland Security and the CBP to secure the southern border," said General O'Shaughnessy. The order did not specify the threat against which the border was secured, the general said. He rejected claims that the US military was being used for political purposes, calling the caravan a threat to border security.
Retired Army General Wesley Clark, who unsuccessfully presented to the presidency as a Democrat in 2004, said Trump should personally shoulder the cost of troop deployment.
"The US taxpayer has the right to demand that President Trump repay the government his senseless waste of military resources, so as to try to foment fears before the elections," he said. Monday in a Twitter message.
Many Republicans support the deployment.
"We need to prevent this caravan from entering the United States," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R., Texas), chairman of House Homeland Security's committee.
-Vivian Salama
contributed to this article.
Write to Nancy A. Youssef at [email protected]
