The White House said the Marine Corps is helping Customs and Border Protection with a “mission to secure America” at the southern border.
“Promise Made –<>> Promise KEPT!” the White House’s post on social media platform X reads.
Attached to the Friday post is a video showing, among other images, soldiers picking up guns near a wall at the border. Another clip shows them walking with gear near helicopters, the wall in the distance.
The video starts with footage of armored trucks and what appear to be Humvee vehicles moving near the wall. Next to appear in the footage are helicopters, which are later seen stirring up dirt close to the wall.
At one point, there is also a clip of soldiers talking with somebody wearing what seems to be a Border Patrol uniform.
The end of the video shows soldiers entering a helicopter. First Lt. Troy Garza of the Marine Corps said in a statement that helicopter units observed landing zones and areas along the border and met with CBP agents.
“Marine Expeditionary Force will deploy approximately 500 Marines and Sailors as an immediate augmentation of military active-duty forces to the Southern Border to carry out directed missions called for by the President to secure the border and protect and defend the territorial integrity of the United States,” Garza said.
Acting Secretary of Defense Robert Salesses announced Wednesday the Department of Defense (DOD) would send 1,500 service members, as well as “air and intelligence assets,” to the southern border to add to the troops already conducting “enforcement operations” there.
The additional troops will start working on placing physical barriers at the border, the DOD quoted a senior military official as saying.
“We anticipate that overall, on the southwest border, (active-duty personnel) will provide real-time situational awareness of persons, vehicles, vessels and aircraft; and they’ll work with (CBP) on operator-level maintenance, movement and staging of (CBP) assets,” the official reportedly said.
The DOD will also provide “airlift support” to help deport more than 5,000 people detained at the border, the department noted.
“On Monday, to protect the security and safety of United States citizens, President Trump declared that a national emergency exists at the southern border of the United States,” Salesses said. “The president directed me to take all appropriate action to support the activities of the secretary of homeland security in obtaining complete operational control of the southern border of the United States.”
President Donald Trump said in his declaration of the emergency that it is necessary for the military to “take all appropriate action” to help get “full operational control” of the southern border.
“To protect the security and safety of United States citizens, to protect each of the States against invasion, and to uphold my duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, it is my responsibility as President to ensure that the illegal entry of aliens into the United States via the southern border be immediately and entirely stopped,” the declaration reads.
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