The Pentagon will deploy nearly 200 intelligence and signals troops to the border, according to a military news release Wednesday, adding to the more than 10,000 troops border-wide amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Eighty Army “military intelligence professionals” from Fort Drum, New York, and the XVIII Airborne Corps headquartered out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will augment the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border. They are joined by 100 personnel from a yet-to-be named Army signals unit.
U.S. Northern Command announced that it had created the intelligence joint task force in February meant to “integrate and deconflict intelligence planning and threat analysis” during the border mission.
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“The exact timeline for these deployments has not been determined, and the exact number of personnel will fluctuate as units rotate personnel and as additional forces are tasked to deploy once planning efforts are finalized,” the news release said. It was unclear where the units would be specifically headed along the border.
Becky Farmer, a spokesperson for NORTHCOM, said that the command was “limited” on what it could release regarding the roles and responsibilities of the personnel. However, she said that military intelligence analysts sift through information streams to better inform Gen. Gregory Guillot, head of the command, while regularly collaborating with organizations like the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
“They are prohibited from collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens,” she said when asked about the legality of active-duty service members collecting intelligence within the contiguous U.S. She added that “we are definitely in compliance with all intelligence oversight laws and regulations in conducting this mission.”
CNN previously reported that the CIA was flying secret drone missions into Mexico in an effort to surveil drug cartels, which the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations. Intelligence analysts for the Air Force were deployed to the border as well, Northern Command said last month.
The announcement of additional intel troops heading to the border comes after Northern Command announced that service members assigned to the New Mexico border were authorized to temporarily detain, search and conduct crowd control against “trespassers” along a newly military-controlled strip of land the command is calling the National Defense Area.
On April 11, Trump transferred the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide stretch of border land, to the Pentagon in an effort to increase migrant apprehension, something service members were restricted from doing prior to the authorization.
Farmer said in a follow-up email that Northern Command’s intelligence activities are governed by U.S. attorney general-approved procedures and a 2017 policy on the Pentagon’s Intelligence Oversight program.
“These procedures balance the need to collect information for national security with the need to protect individual rights,” she said.
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