A Pentagon official said Tuesday the Trump administration sent 5,900 active-duty members of the military instead of National Guard troops to the border in October because they were more readily available, after thousands of guardsmen had been deployed in April.
“Active-duty military personnel were selected because the secretary of defense determined them to be the best-suited and most readily available forces from the total force to provide the assistance requested by the DHS,” Under Secretary of Defense for Policy John Rood told the House Armed Services Committee during a hearing on the deployments Tuesday morning.
Rood said the Pentagon consulted with National Guard bureaus and state adjutants general and found they could only get help from 19 states for the second request in October, for a total of 2,000 troops.
“Therefore, the delta between that sustainable rate and the new request of homeland security is what we’re going to source from the active-duty,” Rood said.
“At the time when those forces were amassing and we weren’t sure whether they are going to come by foot, by vehicle, or by train, the decision was made within the department given the options that we laid out in terms of timing, to send active-duty because we got those troops down there within a week,” said Vice Adm. Michael Gilday, joint staff operations director. “We did look at the guard and we did look at guard capacity for the mission, for those particular missions — the requirements that DHS and CBP had required — and we just didn’t have those skill sets available in the guard to draw upon at the time.”
New committee chairman, Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., said he did not understand why more military had been sent to the U.S.-Mexico border after the April deployment or what they were doing now.
“To date, the impact of their deployment isn’t fully understood nor has there been a full justification for why the administration subsequently diverted active-duty personnel to the border or details regarding when that deployment will end,” Smith said. “In previous years, when the military has supported the Department of Homeland Security along the southern border, National Guard personnel were deployed.”
Last April, President Trump called for 4,000 guardsmen to be sent to the border as a caravan of about 1,000 Central Americans seeking asylum moved through Mexico on the way to San Diego, Calif.
DHS asked Defense officials to send guardsmen to specific border regions so they could help bolster barriers in vulnerable spots where large groups of people could attempt to breach, Rood explained. Under Operation Guardian Support, around 1,800 guardsmen in the four border states helped with administrative, logistical, and operational support jobs that allowed Border Patrol agents to get out of the office and into the field. That mission was renewed through the end of this coming September.
As military, troops were not allowed to carry out law enforcement duties, like arresting anyone who entered the country illegally.
In addition, DHS asked the Pentagon in October for 10,000 troops to help with Operation Secure Line. That project included aviation support, engineering support at ports of entry, installing temporary barriers, and putting up concertina wire on existing ones, Rood said.
About 5,900 were sent to the border and troops were sent home after projects were completed.
“By Christmas, those numbers were down to 2,400,” Gilday said. ” Because we finished laying the concertina wire, when that mission was complete, we redeployed those people home. When we determined that the flow of migrants that had to be screened by our medical personnel wasn’t as high as originally estimated, we downsized and we brought those people home.”
“When the facilities that we built were no longer required by CBP [Customs and Border Protection] — they had initially surged their forces — their personnel down there, we had provided temporary housing — when that wasn’t required, we sent our people and we sent that equipment home,” he said. “We have tried to adjust keeping in mind readiness, keeping in mind cost, it’s been a fairly evolving dynamic.”
This month, the Pentagon renewed the active-duty operation and asked for more troops who will work in all of Border Patrol’s nine southern regions making the barriers harder to get across. Troops serving in the mobile surveillance camera support will monitor sensors and sky cameras then alert agents of suspicious activity.
Starting Feb. 1, military will be shifted between jobs depending on what is the most important task that needs completing first.
