The United States Department of Defense (DoD) ordered 1,500 active-duty service members and additional air and intelligence assets to the southern border. The personnel will supplement the troops already conducting enforcement operations.
Approximately 2,500 active-duty personnel had previously been deployed to the region. The additional troops will include 1,000 U.S. Army soldiers and 500 Marines who had been previously placed on standby in Southern California to address the Los Angeles County wildfires if needed. The personnel will include military police and could come from multiple U.S. Army installations, including Fort Bliss, Fort Riley, Fort Cavazos, Fort Stewart, Fort Carson, and Fort Campbell.
“On Monday, to protect the security and safety of United States citizens, President Trump declared that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States. The president directed me to take all appropriate action to support the activities of the secretary of homeland security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border of the United States,” the Pentagon announced.
The order came about 36 hours after the White House issued an executive order directing the Pentagon to help address the situation at the border.
The number of Marines could climb to 2,500, the DoD added. In addition to the active duty troops, there are now approximately 4,500 Texas National Guardsmen who have been deployed to the border as part of Operation Lone Star, which was initiated by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2021.
“President Trump directed action from [DOD] on securing our nation’s borders and made clear he expects immediate results. That is exactly what our military is doing under his leadership,” Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses said in a statement.
What Will the Forces Do?
According to the DoD, the active-duty personnel will “initially be put to work on the placement of physical barriers and other border missions.” That could include logistical and bureaucratic tasks including data entry, detection and monitoring, and vehicle maintenance.
An unnamed senior military official told CNN, “We anticipate that overall, on the southwest border, [active-duty personnel] will provide real-time situational awareness of persons, vehicles, vessels and aircraft; and they’ll work with [U.S. Customs and Border Protection] on operator-level maintenance, movement and staging of [CBP] assets.”
The United States Coast Guard (USCG), which while a branch of the U.S. military is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has also been ordered to increase the number of cutters, aircraft, and other assets deployed to “key areas,” the service said in a statement on Tuesday.
“Per the President’s Executive Orders, I have directed my operational commanders to immediately surge assets – cutters, aircraft, boats, and deployable specialized forces – to increase Coast Guard presence and focus,” Admiral Kevin Lunday, USCG acting commandant, said in the statement.
Those key areas include the southeast U.S. border approaching Florida to deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba; the maritime border around Alaska, Hawaii, the U.S. territories of Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; the maritime border between the Bahamas and south Florida; the southwest maritime border between the US and Mexico in the Pacific; and the maritime border between Texas and Mexico.
The USCG will further support CBP with the maritime portions of the southwest U.S. border
“Together, in coordination with our Department of Homeland Security and Department of Defense teammates, we will detect, deter and interdict illegal migration, drug smuggling and other terrorist or hostile activity before it reaches our border,” added Lunday.
The U.S. Military and the Border
According to the U.S. Army, the military has been frequently employed on the southern border to perform a variety of roles – from “outright war, to patrolling the border, to chasing bandit.”
The U.S. border has also shifted multiple times with U.S. expansion, and as History.com reported both official and unofficial groups have sought to regulate the movement of people across the border. That included Native Americans, escaped slaves, Chinese immigrants, and Mexicans.
The U.S. military also crossed the border – most famously in 1916-17 to confront Mexican revolutionary/bandit Francisco (Pancho) Villa who conducted a raid on Columbus, New Mexico, which resulted in 24 American casualties.
In March 1916, Brigadier General John J. Pershing led a punitive expedition force of around 10,000 personnel into Mexico. While Pershing was ordered to respect the sovereignty of Mexico, the expedition he led advanced some 400 miles south of the border. Villa was never captured, but the U.S. military engaged in minor skirmishes with bands of insurgents and there were even clashes with the Mexican Army.
After normal relations were restored with Mexico, the U.S. forces were withdrawn from Mexico in February 1917.
