Migrant Caravan: Trump says US could send 15,000 troops to border with Mexico

The United States could send as many as 15,000 troops to the border with Mexico U.S. said President Donald Trump on Wednesday, as he hardens his stance against a caravan of migrants of Central America moving towards the US to flee from violence and poverty of their countries.

The numbers cited by Trump are significantly higher than defense officials have disclosed. The Pentagon said on Monday it was deploying more than 5,200 troops to the border but that the number would rise. On Wednesday, it said more than 7,000 troops would support the Department of Homeland Security along the border.

Trump has been accused of politicizing the military ahead of next week’s congressional elections with his plans to use active military personnel to buttress border patrol efforts.

“As far as the caravan is concerned, our military is out ... We’ll go up to anywhere between 10 and 15,000 military personnel, on top of Border Patrol, ICE and everybody else at the border,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

No exact number was disclosed by Trump that how many of those 15,000 would be National Guard. There are already 2,100 U.S. National Guard forces at the border, sent after a previous Trump request in April, and they are authorized to go up to 4,000.

If 15,000 troops were drawn into the effort, it would mean there would be more U.S. troops on the border with Mexico than there are in Afghanistan, which has become America’s longest conflict.

Trump has sought to use immigration as an issue to motivate Republican voters ahead of the Nov. 6 elections, where Republicans will seek to maintain control of both congressional chambers.

As a presidential candidate before the U.S. election in 2016, Trump promised to harden immigration laws and build a wall along the southern border with Mexico, but implementation of his signature campaign promise has been slow.

A caravan of Central American migrants estimated to number at least 3,500 people left Honduras in mid-October and is now in southern Mexico on its way to the U.S. border.

(Agency inputs)