Biden to Send 1,500 Active-Duty Troops to the
Southern Border
The easing of Covid-era restrictions could lead to an
increase in migrants, officials say.
Helene
Cooper
By Helene
Cooper
May 2,
2023, 12:39 p.m. ET
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/02/us/politics/biden-troops-border.html
WASHINGTON
— President Biden is sending 1,500 active-duty troops to the southern border
with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Tuesday, as the administration braces for a
possible influx of migrants seeking to take advantage of the lifting of
Covid-era restrictions to asylum.
The
Pentagon is expected to announce the border deployment Tuesday afternoon, one
official said. The troops, the official said, will be armed for self-defense,
but they will not have a law enforcement role. Rather, they will help Border
Patrol agents with processing asylum seekers and provide data entry and
warehouse support.
They will
supplement 2,500 National Guard troops who are already at the border.
The
decision comes less than two weeks before the scheduled court-ordered lifting
of Title 42, a public health rule issued during the pandemic that gives U.S.
officials unusual powers to quickly expel migrants who cross the border without
permission. Officials in the Biden administration fear the change in law will
attract a wave of migrants.
The
additional troops will likely remain at the border for 90 days, after which
they would likely be replaced by contractors or military reserve troops, one
official said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the
decision has not been announced yet.
Republicans
have criticized Mr. Biden for easing border restrictions put in place by
President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Trump’s presidency featured border policies that
thrust the United States into a storm of criticism characterized by photos of
children separated from their parents and put in cages.
At one
point in 2018, Mr. Trump described a “wall of people” to stop caravans of
Central American refugees and called for up to 15,000 troops to defend the
border. The Pentagon sent 5,900, then cut that number quickly to 2,400. Mr.
Trump also spoke of telling the military to respond to rocks thrown by migrants
as if they were rifles.
Democrats
said the Trump deployments — especially the ones just before the midterms —
were flagrantly political.
The Posse
Comitatus Act, dating to Reconstruction, bars American forces from engaging in
law enforcement activities within the borders of the United States.
Helene
Cooper
Helene
Cooper is a Pentagon correspondent. She was previously an editor, diplomatic
correspondent and White House correspondent, and was part of the team awarded
the 2015 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for its coverage of the
Ebola epidemic. More about Helene Cooper
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