By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. military is preparing to send roughly 1,500 additional active-duty troops to the border with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Wednesday, just two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration.
The additional troops would be joining the roughly 2,200 active-duty and thousands of National Guard troops already on the border.
During his first term, Republican Trump ordered 5,200 troops to help secure the border with Mexico. Democratic former President Joe Biden deployed active-duty troops to the border as well.
One official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said this was likely the first wave of troops being sent to the border and the number could increase.
The official added that U.S. military aircraft could also be used to deport migrants, but that had not yet been approved.
Trump in his first day in office declared illegal immigration a national emergency, tasking the U.S. military with aiding border security, issuing a broad ban on asylum, and taking steps to restrict citizenship for children born on American soil.
His Jan. 20 executive order instructed the Pentagon to send as many troops as necessary to obtain “complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”
“Within 90 days, the heads of the Defense Department and Department of Homeland Security will need to recommend whether additional actions, including invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807, might be necessary,” it said.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the U.S. president to deploy the military to suppress domestic insurrection and has been used in the past to quell civil unrest.
Trump recaptured the White House after promising to intensify border security and deport record numbers of migrants. He criticized Biden for high levels of illegal immigration, although the number of migrants caught crossing illegally had already begun to fall dramatically after Biden toughened his policies last year and Mexico stepped up enforcement.
The Coast Guard, which is tasked with maritime security and law enforcement, on Tuesday said it would “immediately surge” forces and ships to a number of areas, including the southeast border near Florida, to “deter and prevent a maritime mass migration from Haiti and/or Cuba.”
It said another key area was the maritime border between Texas and Mexico in the “Gulf of America.”
Trump has said he wants to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
