US Sending 5,200 Troops To Mexican Border

The deployment is more than double the amount of personnel fighting IS in Syria (Picture: US Marine Corps).

US defence chiefs are sending 5,200 troops to the south-west border with Mexico in a military operation ordered just a week before mid-term elections in America.

During campaign rallies, President Donald Trump has placed a sharp focus on Central American migrants moving north in slow-moving caravans which are still hundreds of miles from the US.

The military operation is known as 'Operation Faithful Patriot'.

The number of troops being deployed is more than double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting so-called Islamic State.

Mr Trump stepped up his warnings about the caravans, tweeting: "This is an invasion of our Country and our Military is waiting for you!"

Mr Trump also said the US would build "tent cities" for asylum seekers.

"We're going to put tents up all over the place," he told Fox News Channel's Laura Ingraham.

"They're going to be very nice and they're going to wait and if they don't get asylum, they get out."

Under current protocol, migrants who clear an initial screening are often released until their cases are decided in immigration court, which can take several years.

Faithful Patriot was described by the commander of US Northern Command as an effort to help Customs and Border Protection "harden the southern border" by stiffening defences at and near legal entry points.

Advanced helicopters will allow border protection agents to swoop down on migrants trying to cross illegally, said Air Force General Terrence O'Shaughnessy.

"We will not allow a large group to enter the US in an unlawful and unsafe manner," said Kevin McAleenan, commissioner of Customs and Border Protection.

Eight hundred troops already are on their way to southern Texas, general O'Shaughnessy said, and their numbers will top 5,200 by week's end.

Some of the troops will be armed with a focus first on Texas, followed by Arizona and then California.

The troops will join the more than 2,000 National Guardsmen Mr Trump has already deployed to the border.

It remains unclear why the administration is choosing to send active-duty troops given that they will be limited to performing the same support functions the Guard already is doing.

Migrants are entitled under both US and international law to apply for asylum. But there already is a bottleneck of would-be asylum seekers waiting at some US border crossings to make their claims, some waiting as long as five weeks.