On Tuesday, the Biden administration approved sending 1,500 active-duty United States troops to the southern border with Mexico soon as concerns grew that hundreds of migrants from various countries will illegally come into the homeland once the Trump administration's Title 42 law is lifted.
According to reports, US officials have told media outlets that soldiers would come from various active-duty Army units serving for almost two months in administrative and transport roles to aid law enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) officials.
Speaking to reporters, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby said that the deployment is consistent with support to the border dating back to the George W. Bush administration.
Government officials say the troop deployment would be the same as the deployment to the US-Mexican Southern Border ordered by the former Trump administration, where troops would be armed for self-defense but not aid law enforcement in their regular duties.
"We do expect that encounters at our southern border will increase as smugglers are seeking to take advantage of this change and already are hard at work spreading disinformation that the border will be open after that. High encounters will place a strain on our entire system, including our dedicated and heroic workforce and our communities," US Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas said last Thursday.
The law in question, Title 42, was created under the Trump administration, allowing the immediate removal of migrants at the US border following the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since 2020, many migrants have flooded the US-Southern Border following the Biden administration's decision to remove Trump-era laws that protected the US border from illegal immigration.
According to CBP statistics, around 46% of migrant encounters at the US southern border resulted in a Title 42 expulsion. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Mayorkas told Senate lawmakers last month that 360,000 migrants out of 1.3 million migrants were deported in 2022 by Title 8.
Following the effort by the Biden administration to remove Title 42, the Biden administration created a new asylum rule barring migrants from being able to claim asylum if they crossed into America illegally, have not scheduled an appointment through the CBP One app, and have not obtained asylum in a country through which they previously went through.
Secretary Mayorkas stressed that the "presumption of ineligibility" will be respected with exemptions for some people, angering progressive Democrats and immigration activists who find it similar to the Trump-era law, describing it as an encroachment on the right of anyone from anywhere in the world to claim asylum at the US border.
In Congress, Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have called on the administration to address the growing immigration crisis and do everything in its power to secure the US southern border and not undo Trump-era policies that helped secure the border. For the past several months, Republican House and Senate lawmakers have called for the impeachment of Mayorkas, stating that the DHS Secretary has not carried through on his duties and lied to the American people about the situation at the border.
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