Biden Orders 1,500 Soldiers to Southern Border ahead of Title 42 Expiration

President Joe Biden is dispatching 1,500 soldiers to the Southern border to stem the surge of illegal immigrants that are expected to follow next Thursday’s expiration of Title 42, a pandemic-era public-health measure that allows Border Patrol to immediately expel illegal immigrants.

The active-duty Army units will assist Border Patrol and will be armed, though they will only be permitted to use their weapons in self-defense.

Following a request by the DHS, the Department of Defense agreed to “provide a temporary increase of an additional 1,500 military personnel, for 90 days, to supplement CBP efforts at the border,” an unnamed US official said in a statement provided to CNN.

“These 1,500 military personnel will fill critical capability gaps, such as ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support, until CBP can address these needs through contracted support. They will not be doing any law enforcement work.”

The 90-day deployment will find soldiers assuming administrative, transportation, and monitoring roles in an effort to free up Border Patrol personnel. Once the measure is approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, the detachment will join 2,500 National Guardsmen already stationed and active on the border.

Similar initiatives have been implemented in the past by Presidents George Bush in 2006, Barack Obama four years later, and Donald Trump in 2018 to shore up the American border with Mexico.

At least two million migrants have been intercepted at the U.S.-Mexico border since Title 42 was enacted by then-President Donald Trump at the beginning of the pandemic in March 2020.

On Monday, Border Patrol Chief Raul Ortiz shared on Twitter that federal agents had apprehended over 22,000 individuals and confiscated more than 800 pounds of methamphetamine in the past three days alone.

Last Friday, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned that the impending end of Title 42 presented a challenging situation for the federal agency.

“We have been preparing for this transition for more than a year and a half. Notwithstanding those preparations, we do expect that encounters at our southern border will [be] increasing, as smugglers are seeking to take advantage of this change and already are hard at work spreading disinformation that the border will be open after that,” Mayorkas told reporters at a press conference on regional migration.

“High encounters will place a strain on our entire system, including our dedicated and heroic workforce and our communities.”

In late April, roughly 40,000 migrants had already camped out in Juarez, Mexico, adjacent to the border town of El Paso, Texas, in anticipation of the policy’s termination on May 11, the New York Post reports. In recent days, federal border agents have had an average of approximately 7,000 border interactions with illegal migrants, a number expected to dramatically rise post-Title 42.