Acting Defense Secretary Shanahan visited Texas and said he intends to accelerate planning to secure the border without the Pentagon's continuous help.
Acting Defense secretary Patrick Shanahan, left, speaks with troops near McAllen, Texas, on Saturday. At right is Kevin McAleenan, acting Homeland Security secretary.
Shanahan told Congress this past week that there are 4,364 military troops on the border, including active-duty and National Guard. They are erecting barriers, providing logistics and transportation service and other activities in support of Customs and Border Protection. The troops are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties. Troops have been deployed on the border since last October and are committed to being there through September.
Shortfalls in personnel and other resources have prompted Homeland Security to periodically ask for the military's help on the U.S.-Mexico border, without a plan for how to fix the underlying resource problems. Shanahan announced Friday that he was transferring $1.5 billion from numerous defense projects, including $604 million originally intended for use in support of Afghan security forces, to a Pentagon counterdrug fund that will help finance construction of barriers on the U.S.-Mexico border. That is in addition to $1 billion the Pentagon transferred for wall construction in March.
"The question he and I are trying to answer is," Shanahan said,"how long will we be at the border?" He added,"We really need to get back to our primary missions and continue to generate readiness" to undertake conventional military operations.
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