Additional military troops set to be deployed to southern border to bolster security mission

By 
 March 13, 2025

President Donald Trump is serious about the importance of securing the nation's southern border, and to prove it he has ordered the U.S. military to deploy troops as necessary to help achieve that goal.

On Tuesday, it was announced that an additional 600 troops from the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force would soon be deployed to the southern border to provide assistance to the ongoing border security mission, Stars and Stripes reported.

Once those dispatched units arrive on station, it will bring the total deployment of U.S. service members to the border security support mission up to around 9,600 troops.

More troops headed to the southern border

A press release on Tuesday from U.S. Northern Command announced that a total of 630 military service members would soon be sent to the southern border to bolster the ongoing security mission.

That deployment would include around 40 Air Force intelligence analysts from both active-duty and reserve components to join the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border.

They would be joined by roughly 590 engineers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the 18th Airborne Corps -- including from brigades, battalions, and companies stationed in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Louisiana -- to participate in missions including "planning, coordinating, integrating, and an assortment of engineer operations."

Specific missions would be assigned once those units were on station, but there was no timetable provided for when those deployments would actually occur.

It was further noted that while this additional deployment would increase the total number of troops deployed to the southern border to around 9,600, the "exact number of personnel will fluctuate" as units and individuals rotate in and out or as even more troops are dispatched to support the mission.

Trump's orders issued on Day One

These and prior deployments of U.S. troops to the southern border stem directly from a pair of executive orders that President Trump signed on his first day in office.

The first of those orders declared a national emergency on the southern border and directed the Defense Department to take whatever actions were deemed necessary to supplement and support the Department of Homeland Security's mission to fully secure the nation's borders, including assisting in the construction of physical barriers and the use of unmanned aerial systems to conduct reconnaissance and surveillance.

The second of Trump's orders clarified the military's role on the border by placing U.S. Northern Command in charge of "the mission to seal the borders and maintain the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and security of the United States by repelling forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities."

Other troops already deployed to the border

Task & Purpose reported that just days after President Trump issued those orders, the Pentagon responded with an initial deployment of approximately 1,000 Army soldiers and 500 U.S. Marines to help bolster border security.

They were later joined by roughly 2,400 troops and armored vehicles from a Stryker Brigade Combat Team and infantry division from Colorado along with another 500 soldiers from a Combat Aviation Brigade stationed in Georgia.

The outlet noted that the Air Force is also planning to possibly soon begin using its new OA-1K Skyraider II, a single-engine turboprop aircraft, to "conduct advanced armed intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, and carry out precision airstrikes" along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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