The White House announced Wednesday that 1,500 additional active-duty troops will be deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, bolstering security efforts just two days after President Donald Trump signed a new executive order aimed at tackling immigration.
The new deployment will include 500 Marines, as well as Army helicopter crews and intelligence analysts. These forces will join the 2,200 active-duty troops already stationed at the border, along with thousands of National Guard personnel who were in place before Trump’s inauguration this week.
This move follows a similar deployment strategy from Trump’s first term, during which he ordered 5,200 active-duty troops to assist in securing the border. His predecessor, former President Joe Biden, also deployed active-duty forces to the region.
White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt explained that the troop increase is part of a broader strategy that stems from President Trump’s day-one executive action, which directs the Department of Defense to make homeland security a central mission of the agency.
“This comes off of President Trump’s day-one action to direct the Department of Defense to make homeland security a core mission of the agency,” Leavitt told reporters.
His Jan. 20 executive order instructed the Pentagon to send as many troops as necessary to obtain “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the U.S. president to deploy the military to suppress domestic insurrection and has been used in the past to quell civil unrest.
