The US military on Monday announced it would soon have more troops deployed along the US–Mexico border than it has fighting extremists in Syria and Iraq.



Air Force Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy, the head of US Northern Command, announced that 5,200 troops would soon join 2,092 National Guard members who were deployed in April along the border, bringing the total number of US troops there to roughly 7,300.

That is more than are currently deployed to Iraq and Syria, where the US has 5,200 and 2,000 troops, respectively, and about half the US military presence of 15,000 in Afghanistan.

The troops would also outnumber the group of migrants moving toward the border by more than two to one. Two-thirds of those migrants are women and children.

“I think the president has made it clear that border security is national security,” O’Shaughnessy said at a press conference. He said an initial group of 800 troops had already been dispatched to Texas.

The active-duty troops deployed to the border will “harden the points of entry” in Texas, Arizona, and California working with US Customs and Border Protection, he said. They will include combat engineer battalions with experience building fencing, helicopter companies with aircraft equipped with night-vision capabilities, and members of the US Army Corps of Engineers. He emphasized that they would be stationed at ports of entry “in a support role” and assist with different projects including construction, medical aid, and aerial transport.

The troops are expected to be in place by the end of the week, O’Shaughnessy said. A spokesperson said the Pentagon was still determining the cost of the deployment.

O’Shaughnessy offered an unusually bellicose assessment of the deployment, given the long-standing portrayal of the US–Mexican border as one of the longest demilitarized frontiers in the world. He said the troops would deploy with 22 miles of concertina wire and would have 150 more miles of the razor-sharp material available. The US–Mexico border is 1,950 miles long.

Troops who normally are issued weapons would deploy with them, he said, though he did not say under what circumstance they would be allowed to fire them. A Pentagon spokesperson said the troops would use weapons only in self-defense.