November 1, 2018 500 AM
FAR WEST TEXAS – Days before the midterm elections and in response to tracking the northbound caravan of Central American migrants in southern Mexico, the U.S military has been mobilized and at least 5,200 active duty troops will be deployed to the Southwestern U.S. border in the coming weeks.
Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense officials confirmed Monday afternoon during a news conference on the Defense Department Deployment – to actualize their role in what has been titled – Operation Faithful Patriot – “a multi-phased and flexible operational response designed to ensure that we are prepared for any number of contingencies involved with the arrival and attempted crossing of a large group of intending migrants at our border, whether they attempt to cross at a port of entry or unlawfully in between ports of entry.”
Those deployed will consist of a mix of active duty, reserve and National Guard forces, in addition to the 2,092 National Guard members who have been in place since April, and will bolster the support of thousands of border patrol agents already deployed to the border regions, as per request from the DHS to the DOD.
As of Monday afternoon, Kevin McAleenan, U.S Customs and Border Protection Commissioner affirmed tracking a “large group of approximately 3,500 traveling through southern Mexico with the stated intend to reach to U.S Border” and that “Our immigration system is unable to effectively process and repatriate those without the right to remain in the United States due to extensive backlogs in our courts and court restrictions on detaining people through their immigration proceedings.”
He continued, “Accordingly we are preparing for the contingency of a large group of arriving persons intending to enter the United States in the next several weeks. Our message to the organizers and participants of this caravan is simple, as the President and Secretary Nielsen have made clear, we will not allow a large group to enter the United States in an unsafe and unlawful manner.” McAleenan emphasized protections offered to the caravan by Mexico and accentuated a staunch sentiment regarding the members entry into the U.S. “For those that seek to cross the border illegally, we will apprehend them and fully enforce the laws of the United States… if you are fleeing alleged persecution at home, you have arrived at a safe place to make your claim (Mexico). If you are an economic migrant seeking to join family members in the Unites States, you should return home and apply for the appropriate visa.”
“I think – I think the president has made it clear that border security is national security. That is the direction we’ve given, that’s the direction that we’re marching to. Our orders are very clear. We are engaged. We are here to support CBP’s capabilities to harden and secure the border,” said Air Force General Terrence K O’Shaughnessy, commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S Northern Command.
Logistically speaking, the first level of efforts with CBP will be harden to the points of entry and address key gaps in areas around the points of entry.
McAleenan confirmed that assistance from the DOD includes three highly experienced and capable combat engineering battalions, “equipped with heavy equipment which, as we speak right now, is line-hauling towards Texas”; military police units; tactical enforcement officers; mobile response teams with training on managing contingencies and riot control; special operations agents; air assets for surveillance and mobile response (including Blackhawks, additional helicopters and multiple fix-wing assets and unmanned aerial systems); and “critical material – enough concertina wire to cover up to 22 miles… and additional concertina that we can string, with over 150 miles available”. “And make no mistakes, as we sit right here today, we have about 800 soldiers that are on their way to Texas right now. They’re coming from Fort Campbell; they’re coming from Fort Knox. They are moving closer to the border. They’re going to continue they’re training, and they’re ready to deploy, to be actually employed on the border”, affirmed O’Shaughnessy.
When asked if the soldiers would be armed, O’Shaughnessy stated, “We’re bringing additional capability with Title 10 forces under – under Faithful Patriot. We have the authority given to us by Secretary Mat-tis. The units that are normally assigned weapons, they are, in fact, deploying with weapons” and added, “Everything we are going is in line with Posse Comitatus [Act].”
The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law signed on June 18, 1878 by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The title of the act comes from the legal concept of posse comitatus, the authority under which a county sheriff, or other law officer, conscripts any able-bodied man to assist him or her in keeping the peace and makes it a crime to use military troops as a domestic police force or to enforce immigration or criminal law at the border.
In response, The American Civil Liberties Union criticized the move as “nothing more than a costly and unnecessary political ploy”.
“Sending active military forces to our southern border is … an unnecessary course of action that will further terrorize and militarize our border communities,” Shaw Drake, the policy counsel for the ACLU Border Rights Center in El Paso, said in a statement. “Military personnel are legally prohibited from engaging in immigration enforcement, and there is no emergency or cost-benefit analysis to justify this sudden deployment.”
According to a press release sent out Tuesday, Andre Segura, legal director for the ACLU of Texas, had this reaction: “Once again, President Trump is insisting on further militarizing our Southern border to rev up his base with fear and false narratives. By sending more troops and considering this executive action, Trump is choosing to vilify and attack people in need of protection. Asylum seekers submit themselves to a process that includes numerous security checks and interviews. Doing away with this system flies in the face of our laws, violates our international commitments, and undercuts what we stand for as a nation.”
As of this week, the migrant caravan is around 900 miles away, according to the DOD, and most of the people in the caravan are walking. Thus, the caravan is likely still 45 days from the Southwest Border and as of Tuesday, American troops were scheduled to end their border deployment in 46 days, which has invited numerous questions regarding the timing of deployment.
This military accretion sides with President Donald Trump’s sentiments that suggest, “criminals, smugglers and Middle Easterners have infiltrated the caravan”, which started out with more than 7,000 individuals and has reduced in size this month. A deployment option in light of such rhetoric ushers in a slew of questions, with many veterans and commentators condemning the mobilization as a “political stunt”.
“Donald Trump thinks unarmed people who are fleeing horrors and are still 1,000 miles away are a national security threat a week before election day?” said Will Fischer, a former Marine who now works for the VoteVets, a progressive veteran’s organization. “I don’t think so,” Fischer said. “It’s a political ploy to blow upon the embers of racism and nativism, and he is using the military again as a political prop to advance his own agenda”.
Is using a powerful military to halt some 3,000 unarmed migrants who may or may not make it to the United States border the best use of taxpayer dollars at the Defense Department? Fischer and other veterans, according to interviews with CNN, point to the unknown cost to taxpayers, given that much smaller deployments of National Guard to the border have cost hundreds of millions of dollars. They also question the cost the military will bear, as the operation pulls troops away from training, other missions and their families.
“You’ve got 5,000 troops that are trained and ready, and we’re using them for something other than their intended mission,” said Todd Harrison, the director of defense budget analysis with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, and a close watcher of the Pentagon’s budget. However, the Pentagon appears ready to move forward with the deployment of a number of troops that will surpass the number of US military personnel currently fighting what remains of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. When asked if the military was being used as a political tool, O’Shaughnessy said Tuesday, “I firmly believe that border security is national security.”
Texas State Senator José Rodriguez, D-El Paso, who represents District 29, which includes the counties of El Paso, Hudspeth, Culberson, Jeff Davis and Presidio – more than 350 miles of the Texas-Mexico Border) also released a statement Tuesday, expressing disapproval of the deployment and similarly proposed misuse of the military by President Trump for campaign purposes. “The administration is claiming they are a national security threat. This is a ridiculous assertion. How in the world can our great country be so afraid of a few thousand desperate people that we would send the military to greet them?” The answer, according to Rodriguez, “is that the administration is trying to distract us from what truly matters by creating fear based on lies, and misusing the military in the process. The president knows that in Texas, people care about their education and health care, and their neighbors. Long term, we must go back to the principles of immigration reform – unifying families, providing work visas, offering pathway to citizenship, maintaining an already strong enforcement presence on the border, and targeting dangerous criminal organizations – and help those countries rebuild what they have lost, in some cases through U.S. actions. We have a responsibility, and opportunity, to help make things better through practical and humane policies toward our southern hemispheric neighbors.” Rodriguez urged Texans to stay focused on midterm elections and to consider issues of this nature that we have observed in both distant and recent pasts. “We’ve been through periods of draconian anti-immigrant policies that included internment camps, and without fail, we’ve always looked back with shame and regret. We are in a moment where we can overcome this pattern by stopping these terrible policies before they do further harm.”
We asked Roger Maier, a CBP Public Affairs Specialist in El Paso how this would affect the Big Bend Border Patrol Sector, as well as trade, travel and Port of Entry operations, to which a spokesperson responded: “Regardless of the operational contingencies we may face, please know this: we will ensure border security – we will not allow a large group to enter the US unlawfully; we will act in accordance with the highest principles of law enforcement; and we will treat intending migrants humanely and professionally at all times. CBP’s highest priority is the safety and security of the American people, the traveling public, CBP personnel and the communities in which we serve. These include participating in operational readiness exercises and the mobilization of resources as needed to ensure the facilitation of lawful trade and travel.”
Meanwhile in El Paso, border residents saw a popular bi-national event, the Run Internacional, a U.S/Mexico 10k, canceled due to the caravan’s impending and expected arrival. The race begins in El Paso and ends in Ciudad Juárez and has been showcased as a symbol of bi-national unity. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection [has] always has been very supportive of this bi-national event and is a critical stakeholder in making this happen,” race organizers posted on their webpage. “You may have heard that a caravan of Central American people is on its way to the U.S.-Mexico border. Based on the need of resources, CBP has requested we postpone this year’s race to a later date in the next few weeks.”
According to the City of Presidio, “The City contacted the Presidio Port Director and operation of the bridge is still OPEN 24/7. Custom Officers are training on procedures in the unlikely event that the Bridge is overwhelmed with people for safety purposes. Other than that, it is Business as usual at the Presidio Port of Entry. The City will be notified if the status of the status of any changes.”
