Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan has announced that he will most likely be sending more troops to the border with large caravans on their way to the United States.
He says they will continue building the concertina fences and backing up the border patrol and may even do other duties that might be allowed by law. Shanahan has already come through with one billion dollars for building a wall and may move even more money from the Military Construction account.
He has to wait until he gets a formal request from the DHS before he can actually commit more troops for the border.
Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan said Friday that he expects there will be more U.S. troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border, as the situation there worsens.
“First of all, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that we’ll provide more support to the border. The way I tend to frame that is: Our support is very elastic, and given the deterioration there at the border, you would expect that we would provide more support,” he told reporters at the Pentagon before a meeting with the German defense minister.
“In terms of the type of support it will be in the form that we provided,” he said.
He said the Pentagon has not received any formal requests for more help from the Department of Homeland Security, which would initiate the request for more assistance. But, he said, “We’ve been having a number of conversations with DHS.”
Shanahan said a planning team for border support would be in the building on Saturday, and would follow up with where the Department of Defense is on barrier construction, on troops deployed, and what types of preliminary plans should be done prior to receiving a DHS request for assistance.