U.S. government deploys 7,000 troops in Mexico border

More than 7 thousand U.S. operatives have been deployed this weekend along three of Mexico’s border states with the objective of blocking Central-American migrants heading to the country. Furthermore, the United States government has initiated a drill for border closure , according to witnesses.

The number of operatives corresponds to what had been announced a few days earlier: the deployment of 5,239 soldiers in the U.S.-Mexico border, who would later meet with 2,100 members of the National Guard that were deployed months ago, according to Michael Kucharek , spokesman of the Northern Command of the U.S. army (Northcom) .

The army reinforcements will focus on the Davis-Monthan airbase in Arizona ; the naval base of San Diego and the Marine base of Pendleton , both in the state of California , and the naval base of Corpus Christi, in Texas . However, Kucharek claimed that their final deployment was “still to be defined.”

According to an anonymous source from the Pentagon , around a thousand soldiers had already arrived in McAllen, Texas yesterday . Within the same state, the U.S. government started installing barbed wire fences to prevent people from crossing . Soldiers will support the Border Patrol in logistic operations and the construction of tents “for our soldiers,” stated Kucharek.

Yesterday, soldiers started an exercise along the border bridges of Reynosa, Tamaulipas, that connect with Pharr and Hidalgo, in Texas . According to Mexican citizens who tried to cross the border into the United States through the Reynosa-Pharr bridge, three out of the four lanes in the sentry were closed. The new measures include thorough revisions of up to two hours for people crossing the Reynosa-Hidalgo bridge . Videos showed soldiers descending from a Black Hawk helicopter and pointing their guns at civilian vehicles on the Mexican side . The soldiers carry special anti-riot equipment and high caliber weapons.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) informed that the army would begin a drill for border closure

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Last Thursday , U.S. President Donald Trump stated: “When they throw rocks, I say consider it a rifle.” implying that the operatives deployed in the southern border had permission to shoot migrants who threw rocks at them, which would constitute a war crime. However, after receiving backlash in the media, Trump retracted his initial statement by saying: “If our soldiers, or Border Patrol, or ICE are going to be hit in the face with rocks, we’re going to arrest those people –that doesn’t mean shoot them- but we’re going to arrest those people quickly, and for a long period of time .”

Members of one of the migrant caravans heading to the U.S. presented a lawsuit in a federal tribunal of Washington through the Nexus Services organization, claiming that Donald Trump, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other federal organizations were threatening to conduct a massacre at the border .

In a conference, former U.S. president Barack Obama claimed that Trump’s plan to deploy soldiers at the border was nothing but a political stunt facing the November elections. “They’re telling you that the existential threat to America is a bunch of poor refugees a thousand miles away,” he claimed with irony, criticizing an operation that many have deemed an example of the Republican party’s fearmongering propaganda.

14,000 Hondurans are part of the migrant caravan

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