Thread: Troops at U.S.-Mexican border to start coming home

Troops at U.S.-Mexican border to start coming home


November 19, 2018

Wesley Morgan







"Our end date right now is 15 December, and I've got no indications from anybody that we'll go beyond that," said Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan. | Guillermo Arias/AFP/Getty Images



The 5,800 troops who were rushed to the southwest border amid President Donald Trump’s pre-election warnings about a refugee caravan will start coming home as early as this week — just as some of those migrants are beginning to arrive.



Democrats and Republicans have criticized the deployment as a ploy by the president to use active-duty military forces as a prop to try to stem Republican losses in this month’s midterm elections.



The general overseeing the deployment told POLITICO on Monday that the first troops will start heading home in the coming days as some are already unneeded, having completed the missions for which they were sent. The returning service members include engineering and logistics units whose jobs included placing concertina wire and other barriers to limit access to ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexico border.



All the troops should be home by Christmas, as originally expected, Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in an interview Monday.



"Our end date right now is 15 December, and I've got no indications from anybody that we'll go beyond that," said Buchanan, who leads the land forces of U.S. Northern Command.



The decision to begin pulling back comes just weeks after Trump ordered the highly unusual deployment.



In previous cases in which the military deployed to beef up security at the border, the forces consisted of part-time National Guard troops under the command of state governors who backed up U.S. Customs and Border Protection and other law enforcement agencies.



But the newly deployed troops, most of them unarmed and from support units, come from the active-duty military, a concession the Pentagon made after Trump insisted that the deployment include "not just the National Guard."



Buchanan confirmed previous reports that the military had rejected a request from the Department of Homeland Security for an armed force to back up Border Patrol agents in the event of a violent confrontation.

"That is a law enforcement task, and the secretary of Defense does not have the authority to approve that inside the homeland," Buchanan said.
The closure earlier Monday of one entry point along the California border near Tijuana, Mexico, was only partial and did not require more drastic measures, Buchanan said.



"About half of the lanes were closed this morning, but that’s it," he reported. "No complete closures."



Other ports might be closed fully in the future, he said, but he did not anticipate any need to take more drastic measures.



"If CBP have reliable information that one of their ports is about to get rushed with a mob, or something like that that could put their agents at risk, they could ask us to completely close the port," Buchanan said. "You understand the importance of commerce at these ports. Nobody in CBP wants to close a port unless they’re actually driven to do so."



The troop deployment should start trailing off as engineer and other logistics troops wind down their mission of building base camps and fortifying ports of entry for the Border Patrol.



Army and Marine engineers have now emplaced about 75 percent of the obstacles they planned to, including concertina wire, shipping containers, and concrete barriers at ports of entry. “Once we get the rest of the obstacles built, we don’t need to keep all those engineers here. As soon as I’m done with a capability, what I intend to do is redeploy it,” Buchanan said. “I don’t want to keep these guys on just to keep them on.”



Logistics troops, too, will be among the first to head home. “I will probably ask to start redeploying some of our logistic capability,” Buchanan predicted. “Now that things are set down here, we don’t need as many troops to actually build base camps and things like that, because the base camps are built."



Among the troops who will remain after construction engineers and logisticians start departing are helicopter pilots, planners, medical personnel, and smaller “quick response” teams of engineers who can help Border Patrol personnel shut down traffic at their ports of entry.

In contrast to the speed of the deployment in early November and the fanfare surrounding it, the withdrawal promises to be slower and quieter — but Buchanan expects it to be done before Christmas.


“That doesn’t mean it’s impossible,” he added. “But right now, this is a temporary mission, and we’re tasked to do it until the 15th of December.”



https://www.politico.com/story/2018/...e-home-1005510

POLL: Should the Pentagon have announced that troops are leaving the border?



Should the Pentagon have announced publicly that troops will be withdrawn from the border?



No, it sends a message to the caravan that the border is unprotected. 87.51%


Yes, they weren't going to stop the caravan anyway. 9.1%


Undecided 3.39%

Return To Poll

(VOTE)

https://www.alipac.us/f18/poll-should-pentagon-have-announced-troops-leaving-border-366696/

Since there is not an option for..

Allow the military to actually STOP an invasion

I have to vote for


Yes, they weren't going to stop the caravan anyway.

My reason---I do not want our military to have rocks thrown at them, and they just have to stand there and allow it.

The military was only sent to fool a few people into voting R one more time. I despise a deceiver!

U.S. likely to give troops authority to protect border officials

Pentagon planning to rotate in new troops at southern border

What kind of B.S. is this. We should not be alerting the enemy of our troop movements!

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Pentagon planning to rotate in new troops at southern border

This is strange indeed. When troops deploy to other countries, they are not switched after 1 month. It appears to be "busy work" to make the American people think they have troops on the border, while they play musical chairs and are not allowed to do anything.

It's about the holidays, so the troops on the US border don't miss both Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The ones there now missed Thanksgiving but will get Christmas. The ones coming got Thanksgiving but will miss Christmas.