The Biden administration will send 1,500 troops to the U.S.-Mexico border amid an expected migrant surge following the end of pandemic-era restrictions, according to four administration officials.
Military personnel will do data entry, warehouse support and other administrative tasks so that U.S. Customs and Border Protection can focus on fieldwork, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday.
The troops “will not be performing law enforcement functions or interacting with immigrants, or migrants,” Jean-Pierre said. “This will free up Border Patrol agents to perform their critical law enforcement duties.”
The troops will carry out this support for 90 days, said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder, “until CBP can address these needs through contracted support.”
It’s unclear when the troops would be deployed.
The COVID-19 restrictions allowed U.S. officials to turn away tens of thousands of migrants crossing the southern border, but those restrictions will lift May 11, and border officials are bracing for an expected surge of migrants. Even amid the restrictions, the administration has seen record numbers of people crossing the border, and President Joe Biden has responded by cracking down on those who cross illegally and by creating new pathways meant to offer alternatives to a dangerous and often deadly journey.
Biden’s actions follow similar moves by then-President Donald Trump, who deployed active duty troops to the border to assist border patrol personnel in processing large migrant caravans, on top of National Guard forces that were already working in that capacity. There are already 2,500 National Guard members at the border, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement.
The Pentagon on Tuesday approved the request for troops by DHS, which manages the border, one of the officials said.
But the deployments have a catch: As a condition for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s previous approval of National Guard troops to support the border mission throughout fiscal year 2023, which ends this Oct. 1, DHS had to agree to work with the White House and Congress “to develop a plan and implement solutions to staffing and funding shortfalls to maintain border security and the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants that do not involve the continued use of DOD personnel and resources after FY2023,” said Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Devin Robinson.
As part of the agreement, DOD requested quarterly updates from DHS on how it would staff its border mission without service members throughout this fiscal year; it was not immediately clear if those updates have happened or if DHS will be able to meet its terms of the agreement — particularly under the strain of another migrant surge
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