Talk about a pathetic attempt to pull the focus back to the imminent threat of people walking. The Trump administration is planning to send more troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, the AP reports. The order will come from Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, but:
Mattis is responding to a request from President Donald Trump, who says he’s “bringing out the military” to address what he’s calling a national emergency at the border.
There are already around 2,000 National Guard troops at the border, and neither they nor the next 800 are allowed to participate in law enforcement—they’re there ostensibly to provide logistical support but mostly to make Donald Trump feel like a big man and convince his supporters that things must be really scary at the border if federal troops are needed. (“Needed.”)
Meanwhile, the migrant caravan Trump has made such a big fuss over is shrinking, as hundreds of people have turned back and 1,700 have applied for asylum in Mexico. So that leaves around 4,500 people, many of them children and women, walking toward the U.S. border, which is 1,000 miles away. When they arrive, they plan to legally request asylum. Scary, scary stuff … if the prospect of having brown people in the U.S. terrifies you.
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