There does not appear to be an exit strategy for U. S. troops at the border, as evidenced by the fact that the Department of Homeland Security requested the military to continue to lend a hand to the Border Patrol beyond September.
Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters Wednesday that defense officials were “evaluating” the most recent request for an extension of the army’s border mission, but refused to say how many military the DHS requested or whether active-duty troops could participate in a long period. run the deployment.
When Task
“I think we’ll be in a better position to verify and respond once we’ve finished researching this app and made a decision,” Kirby said.
It is DHS’s most recent request to expand the army project to the southern border, which began in October 2018 after then-President Donald Trump claimed that a human caravan of “criminals and strangers from the Middle East” was heading to the United States through Central America. Trump has long called on the U. S. government to take strong action against illegal immigration, which has a war cry for its supporters.
Army Lieutenant General Jeffrey Buchanan, who was leading the U. S. military north at the time, told Politico the following month that the army’s presence on the border is not expected to last beyond mid-December. since then he has underscored the fact that predictions of the return of American troops at Christmas are false.
One of President Joe Biden’s first moves after taking over the workplace was to order the Pentagon to avoid cash for military structure projects and the anti-narcotics budget to finance Trump’s unfinished border wall, but Biden does not forget any of the service members deployed on the U. S. -Mexico border.
About 3,800 national guards still have customs and border coverage on the southern border, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Christian Mitchell said.
About 2,149 guards remain in Washington, D. C. , more than 4 months after Biden’s inauguration on January 20, but the project is expected to end on May 23 and the Department of Defense won an extension request, Mitchell said.
Nearly 26,000 Members of the National Guard were sent to the nation’s capital after the January 6 riots at the Capitol. At the request of U. S. Capitol Police, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin agreed in March to maintain a small guard force in the city for more than two months.
If the last troops leave the capital region in the coming days, it may mark a turning point in the uninterrupted National Guard deployments that began last spring amid the new coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) and protests opposed to police brutality following George Floyd’s death.
I would also raise questions about why the United States has troops deployed on its southern border but not in Washington, D. C. Is the national capital less vital than southwestern states?
There is a credible explanation for why the army project on the southern border continues and is simple: politics. Republicans have blamed Biden for the accumulation of migrants who have tried to reach the United States this year, especially uncompanied children.
At Biden’s first press convention at the White House in March, a reporter said he spoke to a mother in Honduras who said he had sent his 9-year-old son to the United States because he thought Biden would not deport him.
But Biden backed down, saying the boy’s mother didn’t think, “I’m going to send him on a thousand-mile adventure across the desert and all the way to America because I know Joe Biden is a great guy and he will. “. takes care of him. “
Biden said the rise in migrants seeking protection in the United States is a political responsibility that can be a challenge in next year’s mid-term elections.
And since all U. S. troops are expected to leave Afghanistan until September, the southern border project may be the next war forever.
Featured image: Soldiers rush to refuel a UH60 Blackhawk between air missions in Sasabe, Arizona, November 20, 2018 (US Army Photography of the United States army)But it’s not the first time Through Sergeant Kyle Larsen)
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