Zero Hedge
October 30, 2018
The White House’s latest “troop surge” to the border will ensure that more than 7,000 National Guard and active duty troops are waiting at 26 crossing points in Texas, Arizona and California to intercept members of the migrant caravan that’s slowly making its way from Honduras to the US’s southern border with Mexico. While most of the thousands of migrants who have been traveling with the caravan are expected to either turn back or seek asylum in Mexico, hundreds, if not thousands, could still try to cross into the US and either petition for asylum or try their luck with an illegal crossing as part of “Operation Faithful Patriot.”
But as a second caravan has formed and is making its way through southern Mexico behind the first caravan that formed on Oct. 13 in the Honduran city of San Pedro Sula, the latest wave of soldiers will likely be staying at the hardened border for some time, armed with weapons and tools to help provide “logistical support” for the more than 2,000 National Guard troops that have been deployed since April, and the border patrol agents whose responsibility it is to apprehend migrants, per RT.
About 3,500 migrants are being monitored in southern Mexico near the border between the states of Chiapas and Oaxaca, while another group of roughly 3,000 is forming at the Mexican-Guatemalan border.
One of the first responsibilities of the latest troop wave will be to “harden” the border.
“We know border security is national security,” General Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a commander with the US Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), announced at a news conference on Monday, noting that the main objective of the US forces is to “harden the points of entry.”
To accomplish this, the troops will build additional border barriers using razor wire and “over two dozen CBP air assets,” four…