Engineers from the Texas National Guard construct concertina wire barriers on the bank of the Rio Grande in support of Operation Lone Star in May 2023. (Savion Johnson/U.S. Army)
President Donald Trump on Monday ordered defense officials to come up with a security plan that could include deploying more troops and drones and building up more barriers, such as the border wall.
Trump signed a string of executive orders in the Oval Office hours after his inauguration commencing his second term as president.
Among them was a handful of border-related orders, including Trump declaring a national emergency at the southwest border and calling for U.S. Northern Command to be assigned the mission within 10 days “to provide steady-state southern border security, seal the border, 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.”
Military leaders can deploy “as many units or members of the armed forces, including the Ready Reserve and the National Guard” deemed necessary to support the Department of Homeland Security, according to the order.
The defense secretary will have 30 days to report on what has been done to secure the southern border. The Senate could vote later this week on the nomination of Pete Hegseth, an Army National Guard veteran and former Fox News personality, to be the next defense secretary.
Any newly deployed troops would join about 2,500 National Guard members now at the border, according to the Pentagon. Those troops work a support mission that includes detection and monitoring, data entry, training, transportation, vehicle maintenance, warehousing and logistical support. This includes helicopter support for aerial reconnaissance in support of Customs and Border Protection personnel on the ground.
The new orders also direct the Pentagon to provide a report on conditions within three months and make any recommended changes to the plan, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows the president to deploy the military domestically for civilian law enforcement. This use of troops is limited by an 1878 law known as the Posse Comitatus Act.
Monday’s executive orders are in line with promises Trump made on the campaign trail and comments he made during his inauguration speech.
“I will send troops to the southern border to repel the disastrous invasion of our country,” Trump said during his inaugural address from the U.S. Capitol. “As commander in chief, I have no higher responsibility than to defend our country from threats and invasions, and that is exactly what I am going to do. We will do it at a level that nobody has ever seen before.”
The orders return many policies and measures taken by Trump in his first term as president, including involving the military in border wall construction.
He first deployed the National Guard to the southwest border in April 2018, then supplemented them with active-duty troops seven months later. The use of troops was later criticized by the National Guard’s top officer as having “no military training value.”
Meanwhile, he diverted more than $10 billion from the Defense Department, including money flagged for military construction projects, to build a wall along the border. When Joe Biden took office in 2021, he halted most border wall construction and rescinded the national emergency. However, Biden kept the National Guard working along the border
The federal troops are part of a mission separate from a state-sponsored deployment of the Texas National Guard, which has roughly 4,700 troops working alongside state police to deter criminal activity at the border. The mission, known as Operation Lone Star, began in 2021, and Trump praised Texas Gov. Greg Abbott during inauguration events Monday morning for his work at the border.
