Trump may send 15,000 troops to US-Mexico border
By
Kevin Martinez
1 November 2018
President Trump announced on Wednesday evening he was considering deploying another 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers to the US-Mexico border. This follows the present deployment of 5,000 active-duty soldiers to the region to stop the entry of a migrant caravan as it makes its way through Mexico.
As of press time Trump’s proposal received muted media coverage and was not referenced on the online front page of the New York Times. Democratic politicians have downplayed the significance of the deployment, calling it a “stunt” by Trump to curry favor with his fascistic base one week before the midterm congressional elections.
While there are undoubtedly electoral considerations behind the Trump administration’s moves, the tripling or quadrupling of troop presence on American soil is a further milestone in the attack on democratic rights and the savage war on immigrants. What is being prepared in the southwest United States is an army of occupation, the size of which has not been seen since the border wars of the Mexican Revolution of 1910–20.
Speaking to reporters in front of the White House before departing to a campaign rally in Florida, Trump declared, “We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel on top of Border Control, ICE and everybody else at the border,” adding “Nobody’s coming in. We’re not allowing people to come in. Immigration is a very, very big and very dangerous, a really dangerous topic. We’re not going to allow people to enter our country who do not have the well-being of our country in mind.”
In a related press conference, the head of US Northern Command Gen. Terrence O’Shaughnessy was asked by reporters what the purpose was of sending…