US sends 5200 troops to Mexico border

The US military will have more than three times as many troops along the border as it does fighting Islamic State in Syria.

Donald Trump: ‘This is an invasion of our country.’ Picture: AFP

The Pentagon is deploying 5200 troops to beef up security along the US-Mexico border, officials announced yesterday, in a bid to prevent a caravan of Central American migrants illegally crossing the frontier.

About 2000 ­National Guardsmen are already working to provide assistance to overwhelmed border authorities.

US President Donald Trump in recent weeks has repeatedly said more troops were needed to tighten border security.

US Customs and Border Protection commissioner Kevin McAleenan said US authorities were tracking a group of about 3500 people travelling north through the Chiapas-Oaxaca area in southern Mexico.

Officials were monitoring another group of about 3000 people at a border crossing between Guatemala and Mexico.

Even as US officials unveiled details of the military deployment, migrants were trying to cross the Suchiate River from Guatemala into Mexico on rafts made from truck tyres, or by forming human chains.

Others swam across after Mexican authorities refused to open a bridge. Mr McAleenan described the situation along the US-Mexico frontier as a “border security and humanitarian crisis”, and said border agents over the past three weeks had apprehended about 1900 people a day illegally crossing.

“Over half of these arrivals have been made up of family units and unaccompanied children who place themselves in the hands of violent human smugglers, paying $US7000 ($9800) per person to make the journey,” Mr McAleenan said.

The deployment marks a sharp increase from initial estimates last week, when US officials said about 800 active-duty troops would head south.

It means that within days, the US military will have more than three times as many troops along the southern border as it does fighting Islamic State in Syria.

Mr Trump took to Twitter yesterday to blast the caravan, which is comprised mainly of Hondurans, many of whom are fleeing horrific gang violence.

“Many Gang Members and some very bad people are mixed into the Caravan heading to our Southern Border,” Mr Trump wrote without providing evidence. “Please go back, you will not be admitted into the United States unless you go through the legal process. This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!”

Mr Trump has been campaigning intensively for weeks, hammering on the migrant caravan issue and stoking anti-immigrant concerns among voters.

He is expected to hold 11 rallies in the days ahead of the ­November 6 mid-terms.

The American Civil Liberties Union called the move a political one to fuel “his anti-immigrant agenda of fear and division” ahead of the mid-terms. “These migrants need water, diapers and basic necessities, not an army division,” ACLU lawyer Shaw Drake said.

The Democrats have been caught largely flat-footed by Mr Trump’s messaging on the caravan and have struggled to present coherent alternatives.

Air Force general Terrence O’Shaughnessy, head of the US military’s Northern Command, said the 5200 troops would focus on trying to “harden” border crossings and surrounding areas.

The Pentagon is sending military police and three helicopter companies with hi-tech sensors and night-vision capabilities.

They will take border personnel “exactly where they need to be, regardless of the conditions”, Mr O’Shaughnessy said.

In addition to the main caravans in southern Mexico, a group of about 300 migrants left San Salvador, the El Salvador capital, on foot on Sunday heading for the border with Guatemala in the hope of eventually reaching the US.

AFP