President Donald Trump said Wednesday that the number of active duty troops that could be sent to the southern border may increase to 10 or even 15,000, in what some have called a “political stunt” ahead of the midterm elections.
“We have about 5,000. We’ll do up anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of border patrol, ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], and everybody else at the border,” he told reporters on the White House South Lawn on Wednesday.
The astounding numbers cited by Trump would represent a drastic three-fold increase of the 5,200 troops already deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border by U.S. Northern Command (Northcom) to stop a migrant caravan. ABC News informs that 15,000 is roughly the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and three times the number in Iraq.
Later the same day, U.S. Northern Command estimated that over 7,000 active duty troops would support Customs and Border Protection personnel.
“The number of troops deployed will change each day as military forces flow into the operating area, but the initial estimate is that the DOD will have more than 7,000 troops supporting DHS across California, Arizona and Texas,” a statement said.
President Trump reiterated once again Wednesday that the migrant caravan moving toward the U.S. was “very dangerous,” stressing that he was not “fear-mongering.” He also pointed to the violent interactions of a second caravan which had recently formed and said there could be a third one originating in El Salvador.
“We are thinking very seriously immediately stopping aid to those countries. Because, frankly, they’re doing nothing for the American people,” said Trump. “Immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous — really dangerous topic. And we’re not going to allow people to come into our country that don’t have the well-being of our country in mind.”
Officials from the Pentagon did not immediately comment on President Trump’s statement that the number of troops could dramatically increase.
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