Defense Secretary Mark Esper approved Thursday another one-year extension of Pentagon assistance to the Department of Homeland Security mission to protect the southern border, with a reduced troop cap of 4,000.
“The real change is that it will mainly be the National Guard and by unit rotations,” a Pentagon spokesman told the Washington Examiner. “The National Guard will make up the bulk of the force.”
Currently, some 5,000 Department of Defense personnel man the southern border, roughly evenly split at 2,600 active duty and 2,400 National Guard.
The Pentagon spokesman said the National Guard personnel do not carry out law enforcement functions and will not do so in the extension, which runs through Sept. 30, 2021.
The renewal at a lower threshold begins at the start of the 2021 fiscal year in October. The announcement today was intended to give time for National Guard units to prepare for deployments that may last from nine months to a year.
A Pentagon press release described the types of responsibilities DoD personnel will take on.
“The duties to be performed by military personnel include the same categories of support as those currently being carried out along the border, including detection and monitoring, logistics, and transportation support to U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” the statement read.
A spokesman explained that National Guard deployments that began at the border in 2018 were done mainly with individual volunteers.
The decision to rotate units at the border is a departure.
On Tuesday, President Trump visited Yuma, Arizona, to mark the 200th mile of border wall completed during his administration, touting increased security and lower illegal immigration.
“We’ve seen the lowest number of illegal border crossings in many years,” Trump said at a border security roundtable in Arizona alongside acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf and head of the Army Corps of Engineers responsible for overseeing the construction, Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite.
The president declared that overall illegal immigration was down 84% from the same time in 2019, and illegal crossings from Central America were down 97% during the same time. Trump said nearly 450,000 pounds of drugs have been seized so far this year, and 2,337 illegal immigrants have been apprehended.
Trump also promised 450 miles of new border wall would be complete by year’s end.
“This is the most powerful and comprehensive border wall structure anywhere in the world,” Trump said. “It’s got technology that nobody would even believe, between sensors and cameras and everything else.”
