While meeting with the German Minister of Defense, Ursula von der Leyen, Acting Secretary of Defense Partick Shanahan told reporters the U.S. Department of Defense is prepared to send even more troops to the southern border.
“First of all, it shouldn't come as a surprise that we'll provide more support to the border,” Shanahan said. “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.”
Shanahan revealed he has not received another request for more service members from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, “but we've been having a number of conversations with” them.
“This past week was space week for me, so tomorrow we'll have a planning team here in the building and it will follow up with where are we on barrier construction, where do we stand on troops deployed and then in the areas we anticipate, what type of preliminary plans should we be doing prior to receiving a request for assistance,” he continued. “So to your detainee question, we haven't received any details on that, but I expect an increase in support will occur.”
There are currently around 2,100 National Guardsmen and 3,000 active-duty troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexico border.
The Democratic state governors from California, New Mexico, and Wisconsin have pulled their National Guardsmen away from the border because they say Trump and his administration are pushing a false crisis.