Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will check on U.S. troops deployed to Texas in support of the counter-caravan mission Wednesday, on his way to a previously schedule ceremony in Wyoming.
Mattis will stop for about an hour to visit with active-duty Army soldiers in McAllen, Texas, amid media reports the troops are living in austere conditions in tents without air conditioning.
Mattis told reporters at the Pentagon that he still has no estimate of how much the deployment of more than 5,000 troops is costing.
“We’ll update you on costs as they become known,” Mattis said, as he prepared to meet with the Qatari defense minister.
“Obviously, the units executing the border mission have got to report them up right up here. We are capturing the costs,” he said.
Mattis also said the latest indications that the migrant caravan was heading to Tijuana, on the border with California has produced no change in the mission or the orders to the troops, who are purely in a support role.
After his stop in Texas Wednesday, Mattis continues on to F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyo., where he is scheduled to attend a ceremony marking the beginning of the process to return the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines, according to the Pentagon.
