By COLLEEN LONG, AAMER MADHANI and TARA COPP (Associated Press)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration will ship 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border beginning subsequent week, forward of an anticipated migrant surge following the top of coronavirus pandemic-era restrictions.
Military personnel will do information entry, warehouse assist and different administrative duties in order that U.S. Customs and Border Protection can concentrate on fieldwork, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre mentioned Tuesday. The troops “will not be performing law enforcement functions or interacting with immigrants, or migrants,” Jean-Pierre mentioned. “This will free up Border Patrol agents to perform their critical law enforcement duties.”
They shall be deployed for 90 days, and shall be pulled from the Army and Marine Corps, and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will look to backfill with National Guard or Reserve troops throughout that interval, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Brig. Gen. Pat Ryder mentioned. There are already 2,500 National Guard members on the border.
The COVID-19 restrictions have allowed U.S. officers to show away tens of hundreds of migrants crossing the southern border, however these restrictions will raise May 11, and border officers are bracing for a surge. Even amid the restrictions, the administration has seen report numbers of individuals crossing the border, and President Joe Biden has responded by cracking down on those that cross illegally and by creating new pathways meant to supply alternate options to a harmful and infrequently lethal journey.
For Biden, who introduced his Democratic reelection marketing campaign per week in the past, the choice indicators his administration is taking significantly an effort to tamp down the variety of unlawful crossings, a potent supply of Republican assaults, and sends a message to potential border crossers to not try the journey. But it additionally attracts probably unwelcome comparisons to Biden’s Republican predecessor, whose insurance policies Biden continuously criticized. Congress, in the meantime, has refused to take any substantial immigration-related actions.
Then-President Donald Trump deployed active-duty troops to the border to help border patrol personnel in processing massive migrant caravans, on high of National Guard forces that have been already working in that capability.
Jean-Pierre downplayed any similarity between Biden’s immigration administration and Trump’s use of troops throughout his time period. “DOD personnel have been supporting CBP at the border for almost two decades now,” Jean-Pierre mentioned. “So this is a common practice.”
But some in Biden’s personal social gathering objected to the choice.
“The Biden administration’s militarization of the border is unacceptable,” mentioned Senate Committee on Foreign Relations chair Bob Menendez, D-N.J. “There is already a humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere, and deploying military personnel only signals that migrants are a threat that require our nation’s troops to contain. Nothing could be further from the truth.”
It’s one other line of protection in an effort to handle overcrowding and different attainable points which may come up as border officers transfer away from the COVID-19 restrictions. Last week, administration officers introduced they’d work to swiftly display migrants looking for asylum on the border, shortly deport these deemed as not being certified, and penalize individuals who cross illegally into the U.S. or illegally via one other nation on their method to the U.S. border.
They can even open facilities outdoors the United States for individuals fleeing violence and poverty to use to fly in legally and settle within the United States, Spain or Canada. The first processing facilities will open in Guatemala and Colombia, with others anticipated to observe.
The Pentagon on Tuesday accepted the request for troops by Homeland Security, which manages the border.
The deployments have a catch: As a situation for Austin’s earlier approval of National Guard troops to the border via Oct. 1, Homeland Security needed to conform to work with the White House and Congress to develop a plan for longer-term staffing options and funding shortfalls, “to maintain border security and the safe, orderly, and humane processing of migrants that do not involve the continued use of DOD personnel and resources,” mentioned Pentagon spokesman Air Force Lt. Col. Devin Robinson.
As a part of the settlement, the Pentagon has requested quarterly updates from Homeland Security on how it will workers its border mission with out servicemembers. It was not instantly clear if these updates have occurred or if border officers will be capable to meet their phrases of the settlement — notably below the pressure of one other anticipated migrant surge.
Homeland Security mentioned it was engaged on it. “U.S. Customs and Border Protection is investing in technology and personnel to reduce its need for DOD support in coming years, and we continue to call on Congress to support us in this task,” the company mentioned in a press release.
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Associated Press writers Zeke Miller, Rebecca Santana, Lolita Baldor and Michael Balsamo contributed to this report.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”