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"Think of it as a rifle," he says. "When they throw stones as they did to the military police of Mexico, consider that as a rifle."
On Friday, Trump tried to come back on the issue, telling reporters that if officers or soldiers "are hit in the face by stones, we will stop these people, that does not mean shoot them."
Rock throwing attacks occur each year along the US-Mexico border. However, the history of these attacks shows that they represent few threats to the forces of order. US border forces have consciously discouraged their use of force. The former customs and border protection commissioner who drafted the policy and current military leaders rejected the idea this week that troops would fire at people who were throwing stones.
Since 2014, officers must also be trained and armed with less deadly weapons, such as pepper ball throwers. Before that, these weapons were optional.
Defense officials said border troops are there to support civilian authorities and should not come into direct contact with migrants. If troops have "accidental interactions" with the borders, they will follow the same rules as border patrol officers, according to Air Force General Terrence O. Shaughnessy, who oversees US Northern Command. These rules indicate that officers should avoid the use of lethal force when there are other options.
Gil Kerlikowske, the CBP commissioner who oversaw the change of policy on the use of force, told CNN on Friday that he did not see the need to deploy additional troops along the border, as He proposed Trump this week.
"They are active combat fighters, it's not part of their training," Kerlikowske said. "The Border Patrol is clearly able to handle this small number of people.The officers are competent to differentiate a person seeking asylum from an MS-13 gang member; they know about tattoos they know what a good question to ask. "
Kerlikowske also said that the rules minimizing the use of deadly force helped the agents. "The use of deadly force over the past three years has decreased by 70%, which means fewer investigations, fewer lawsuits, fewer tolls and less pressure on agents," he said. declared.
Nielsen said the attacks on border agents continued to increase and that "we have more than 800 cases last year where they were attacked by those crossing the border".
According to US defense officials, the number of active soldiers already deployed or identified to be deployed at the border has reached more than 8,000, in addition to the 2,000 National Guard soldiers already present at the border.
CNN Geneva Sands contributed to this report.
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