Biden Sends 1,500 Troops to the US-Mexico Border

By Samantha Loriston

The border crisis is an issue that has politically weakened President Joe Biden during his 2024 campaign announcement.  Biden’s administration is constructing plans to send 1,500 active troops to the United States – Mexico border. On May 11, when the Coronavirus public health emergency ended, a COVID-era border restriction, known as Title 42, will expired, meaning border authorities can no longer quickly remove certain migrants. 

The advancement that comes from the Tittle 42 restriction allows the United States administration to rapidly remove non-Mexican migrants to Mexico without the chance to seek guardianship. 

Former President Donald Trump’s administration approved a similar troop charge to the border. In early 2019, over 3,000 more active-duty troops were deployed to the southern US border to reinforce security, joining the 2,300 troops already there. President Biden expanded the controversial public health measure. 

The United States military has helped the Department of Homeland Security on the border. Right now, there are approximately 2,500 National Guard troops on the border. 

According to the White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre says, military personnel will do data entry, warehouse support, and other administrative tasks.  

Karine Jean-Pierre called for such deployments a common practice. Earlier this month Karine said the troops “will not be performing law enforcement functions or interacting with immigrants, or migrants,” she said, “This will free up Border Patrol agents to perform their critical law enforcement duties.” 

For 90 days (about 3 months), these 1,500 military personnel will fill critical skillfulness gaps Troops will do “ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support. Ryder said “Military personnel will not directly participate in law enforcement activities. This deployment to the border is consistent with other forms of military support to DHS over many years,” Ryder said in his statement. 

United States immigration officials estimate that starting in May, migrant arrivals along the U.S.-Mexico border could increase to 10,000 to 13,000 a day from the current 5,000 to 8,000. 

Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey said the decision to deploy the troops was “unacceptable.” 

“The Biden Administration’s militarization of the border is unacceptable. 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,” Menendez said in a statement. 

The United States and Mexico showed an agreement with the new plan to control the increase of unauthorized border crossings. In addition, this arrangement will allow migrants to enter the U.S. on humanitarian grounds. 

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the Mexican president, said the United States is a sovereign nation and that Mexico respects its decisions. When he was asked about the troop deployment in a news conference. 

 The U.S. will accept migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua, and Venezuela as part of a humanitarian parole program, while Mexico has agreed to accept migrants from those four nations who tried to enter the United States illegally.