Via CNS News:
Ron Vitiello, the acting deputy commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said his agency is working with the Defense Department on the type of National Guard “capabilities” that would boost security on the Southwest Border.
President Trump has suggested putting anywhere from 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops on the border to stem the rising tide of illegal immigration.
“They’ll be doing operational support functions for us. They’ll be watching monitors, border cameras and sensor feeds, those kinds of things. They’ll be helping us in sort of back-room activities. We’ve used them previously to help repair roads and vehicles. We’ve used them to do intelligence and analysis for intelligence, and then aviation is a big part of what we hope they bring.”
Vitiello said CBP wants to put some National Guard troops in each of the nine Southwest border sectors. He said he anticipates having the National Guard stay until the end of next year.
“The standard that the president brought back to us and the Border Patrol is operational control. And so that’s a high bar, and so we can start to demonstrate, you know, that we have situational awareness, we have impedance and now we have a structure, a wall, we have mobility to the border and we have more agents. You start to put those pieces together, the border looks better, and you can start assessing whether the troops are still necessary.”