The Pentagon has approved another Homeland Security Department request for additional National Guards personnel in an effort to support specifically U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers working by air, sea, and remote land regions, a DHS official confirmed Friday.
Defense officials signed off on the deployment of up to 736 National Guard personnel to Southwest border states California, New Mexico, Arizona, and Texas.
Approximately 1,100 guardsmen are stationed across the Border Patrol’s nine sectors along the U.S.-Mexico border as of Friday. That number will soon surpass 1,800 — just half of the 4,000 total troops President Trump approved of sending in early April.
This latest Request For Assistance is the third one since beginning of April. It was sent to the Defense Department in recent days, and states “this request is specifically for the Office of Field Operations, Air and Marine Operations, and the Office on Intelligence.”
The first RFA that DHS submitted to the Pentagon in April outlined the support it needed to help CBP as a whole. The second, sent in early May, dealt with specific Border Patrol needs since the agency is under CBP.
AMO officers will help with administrative work, watch support, aviation operations planning, sensor operation, and aircraft sensor operation.
Guardsmen will assist the field office with motor transport operations or vehicle maintenance and repair transport, nonintrustive ground operations, cargo dock support, camera operations, and observing points of entry.
The intelligence office will get additional watch clerks, report writers, information requirements managers, and watch support all-source analysts.
