Donald Trump to send 1,500 additional troops to secure US-Mexico border

The troops will assist border patrol agents with logistics, transportation, and barrier construction, tasks they have handled during previous deployments.

US President Donald Trump is set to send 1,500 more troops to the Mexico border, his spokeswoman confirmed on Wednesday, as part of a series of actions to combat immigration.

Mexican immigration officials and police receive deportees after they were sent back into Mexico on January 22 as seen from Arizona. U.S. President Donald Trump signed executive orders on his first day in office declaring a state of emergency at the southern border. (Getty Images via AFP)

“President Trump signed an executive order for 1,500 additional troops for the United States' southern border,” press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House.

Around 2,500 US National Guard and Reserve forces are already stationed at the border, and the active-duty troops will be joining them, as no active-duty personnel are currently assigned to the area.

These troops will primarily assist border patrol agents with logistics, transportation, and barrier construction, roles they have taken on during past deployments under both Trump and former president Joe Biden.

Through an executive order, Trump has instructed the incoming secretary of defence and homeland security chief to report back within 90 days on whether the 1807 Insurrection Act should be invoked. This would enable the use of troops for civilian law enforcement on US soil.

The last time the act was invoked was in 1992 during riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.

The deployment, which was widely anticipated, marked an early move in Trump's first week in office and was a key step in his long-promised plan to increase the use of the military along the border.

In one of his initial actions on Monday, Trump directed the defence secretary to create a plan to “seal the borders” and address “unlawful mass migration.”

During his inaugural address on Monday, Trump said, “I will declare a national emergency at our southern border. All illegal entry will be stopped immediately, and we will start the process of returning millions of criminal aliens to their countries of origin.”

Military personnel have been deployed to the border almost without interruption since the 1990s to tackle migration, drug trafficking, and transnational crime.

With agencies inputs