The Department of Homeland Security has asked for approximately 20,000 National Guard troops to help with the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, two US officials told CBS News Thursday.
The Defense Department is still reviewing the request, and National Guard troops from various states could be called in to assist DHS.
According to officials, the troops are being requested to assist law enforcement authorities with logistics and operations related to immigration actions in the United States’ interior, marking the latest expansion of the Trump administration’s unprecedented use of the military to support its large-scale immigration enforcement campaign.
There are already approximately 8,600 federal troops at the border. The United States military has recently established two National Defense Areas, narrow ribbons of land spanning approximately 230 miles along the border in New Mexico and Texas that are treated as extensions of military bases.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth paid a visit in April and declared that “any illegal attempting to enter this zone is entering a military base, a federally protected area.” He also stated that migrants crossing this zone would be detained by both Customs and Border Protection and the Defense Department.
The Navy has also increased its presence at the border. Adm. James Kilby, the acting chief of naval operations, told Congress on Wednesday that the Navy is conducting intelligence flights with P-8 aircraft, two Navy destroyers, and a littoral combat ship as part of the crackdown.
Tricia McLaughlin, DHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs, confirmed the agency’s request for 20,000 National Guard members.
“The Department of Homeland Security will use every tool and resource available to get criminal illegal aliens including gang members, murderers, pedophiles, and other violent criminals out of our country,” McLaughlin said in a news release.
