It’s official. All that talk about the “invasion” coming toward our nation trumped up by Fox News and Donald Trump himself, was just election rhetoric.
We should learn something from this.
The 5,800 troops who were rushed to the Southwest border amid Trump’s pre-election warnings about a refugee caravan will start coming home as early as this week — just as some of those migrants are beginning to arrive.
Democrats and Republicans have criticized the deployment as a ploy by the president to use active-duty military forces as a prop to try to stem Republican losses in this month’s midterm elections.
Trump stoked fear into the electorate before the midterm election in tweets and campaign speeches.
I am watching the Democrat Party led (because they want Open Borders and existing weak laws) assault on our country by Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, whose leaders are doing little to stop this large flow of people, INCLUDING MANY CRIMINALS, from entering Mexico to U.S…..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
….In addition to stopping all payments to these countries, which seem to have almost no control over their population, I must, in the strongest of terms, ask Mexico to stop this onslaught – and if unable to do so I will call up the U.S. Military and CLOSE OUR SOUTHERN BORDER!..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
….The assault on our country at our Southern Border, including the Criminal elements and DRUGS pouring in, is far more important to me, as President, than Trade or the USMCA. Hopefully Mexico will stop this onslaught at their Northern Border. All Democrats fault for weak laws!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 18, 2018
The troops withdrawal after just a few weeks could further fuel claims that the military was misused by Trump when there was no emergency.
In fact, using military troops for political propaganda might be something the new Democratic House investigates come January.
Trump previously threatened to send upwards of 15,000 troops to the border, which would equal more total service members than the U.S. has stationed in Afghanistan.
The deployment to the southern border could cost taxpayers between $42 million to $110 million, according to an independent study released earlier this month.
The general overseeing the deployment said that the first troops will start heading home in the coming days as some are already unneeded, having completed the missions they were sent for.
The returning service members include engineering and logistics units whose jobs included placing concertina wire and other barriers to limit access to ports of entry at the U.S.-Mexican border.
All the troops should be home by Christmas, Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan said in an interview today.
“Our end date right now is 15 December, and I’ve got no indications from anybody that we’ll go beyond that,” said Buchanan, who leads the land forces of U.S. Northern Command.
But the newly deployed troops, most of them unarmed and from support units, come from the active-duty military, a concession the Pentagon made after Trump insisted that the deployment include “not just the National Guard.”
The closure of one entry point earlier Monday along the California border near Tijuana, Mexico, was only partial and did not require more drastic measures, Buchanan said.
“About half of the lanes were closed this morning but that’s it,” he reported. “No complete closures.”
Other ports might be closed fully in the future, he said, but he was not anticipating any need to take more drastic measures.
“If CBP have reliable information that one of their ports is about to get rushed with a mob, or something like that that could put their agents at risk, they could ask us to completely close the port,” Buchanan said. “You understand the importance of commerce at these ports. Nobody in CBP wants to close a port unless they’re actually driven to do so.”
The troop deployment should start trailing off as engineer and other logistics troops wind down their mission of building base camps and fortifying ports of entry for the Border Patrol.