The Defense Department has approved 1,115 more active duty troops to deploy to the U.S. southwestern border, adding to the military’s increased role in supporting immigration control under the second Trump administration.
The units will primarily assist with engineering, logistics and construction missions — from medical care to clearing roads.
There are currently just under 8,000 active duty troops at the border, an increase of around 6,500 since the start of the administration, according to a spokesperson for the military’s task force overseeing the mission.
While they haven’t deployed yet, the additional 1,100 would bring the military close to the 10,000 total that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth approved for the border mission earlier this year.
Under Hegseth’s time in office, the military has taken on an expansive role in supporting immigration controls, a top priority of President Donald Trump. The Pentagon has sent surveillance planes, warships, helicopters and even a brigade of armored Stryker vehicles to assist in the mission.
The administration has also declared two narrow strips of land stretching hundreds of miles along the border to now be military bases, allowing active duty troops to detain any migrants who cross into the territory for trespassing on Defense Department land.
Redesignating the territory is a workaround for laws that prohibit the military from domestic law enforcement, only permitted otherwise if the president invokes the Insurrection Act.
A federal judge has dismissed charges against 100 such migrants charged with trespassing in New Mexico, ruling that they didn’t have enough warning to know they were entering land that was now technically a military base.
Hegseth has pledged that the U.S. will achieve “100% operational control” of the border, though he hasn’t explained what exactly that standard means even as unlawful crossings have plummeted in recent months.
Democrats in Congress have criticized the mission, calling it a waste of military resources and a risk to the armed forces’ readiness to fight.
Noah Robertson is the Pentagon reporter at Defense News. He previously covered national security for the Christian Science Monitor. He holds a bachelor’s degree in English and government from the College of William & Mary in his hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia.
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