By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. military will send 1,500 additional active-duty troops to the border with Mexico, the White House said on Wednesday, just two days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order on immigration.
The additional troops include 500 Marines, as well as Army helicopter crews and intelligence analysts. They will join 2,200 active duty troops and thousands of National Guard that were on the border prior to Trump’s inauguration this week.
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.
“This comes off of (Trump’s) day one action… to direct the Department of Defense to make homeland security a core mission of the agency,” White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
A separate official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said there had been informal discussions about sending as many as 10,000 troops over time. But, officials cautioned, a final figure had not been determined and troop numbers would depend on several factors, including impact on military readiness and what the Department for Homeland Security requests.
Acting Defense Secretary Robert Salesses said the U.S. military would help provide flights for Department of Homeland Security-led deportations of more than 5,000 immigrants held by U.S. authorities in El Paso, Texas, and San Diego, California.
“DHS will provide in-flight law enforcement and the State Department will obtain the requisite diplomatic clearances,” Salesses said.
A U.S. official, briefing Pentagon reporters on condition of anonymity, said the additional 1,500 troops heading to the border were not seen having law enforcement responsibilities.
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, Phil Stewart and Jeff Mason; Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
