550 troops arrive at southern border but can’t assist in catching illegal immigrants.

First US Troops Arrive at Southern Border Ahead of Immigrant Surge

The southern border is bracing for an expected surge of immigrants as Title 42 expires on Thursday. To manage the situation, the first 550 U.S. active-duty troops have arrived at the border, with an additional 1,500 to follow.

Preparing for the Influx

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin approved the plan to send troops to the U.S.-Mexico border last week. The service members will not be responsible for apprehending immigrants or law enforcement matters. Instead, they will provide additional ground detection monitoring capability, warehouse support, and data entry.

The deployments will include Army, Marine Corps, and limited Air Force personnel. Service members from the 2nd Marine Regiment, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina; Combat Logistics Battalion 2, 2nd Marine Division, Camp Lejeune; and 93rd Military Police Battalion, 89th Military Police Brigade, Fort Bliss, Texas, are among those heading to the border.

Border Officials Already Seeing High Numbers of Encounters

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned on Wednesday that border officials are “already seeing high numbers of encounters in certain sectors,” which he said is placing “an incredible strain on our personnel, our facilities, and our communities, with whom we partner closely.”

In order to process the surge, the State Department plans to open roughly 100 regional processing centers at specific locations and will, in the near future, launch an online platform so people can make appointments for those centers.

Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 Limits Military Involvement

Active-duty military personnel are limited in what they can do on the border due to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which bars them from enforcing domestic laws unless explicitly authorized by the U.S. Congress. National Guard soldiers, 2,500 of whom are at the border themselves, were exempt from that law, but because they were deployed under Title 10 active-duty orders, they were barred from enforcing federal law, including immigration laws.

The Pentagon has supported the Department of Homeland Security on the southern border for 18 of the last 22 years, and every year since 2006.