10 things you need to know today: April 5, 2018

Trump signs an order to send National Guard troops to the Mexico border, Mueller's team questions Russian oligarchs, and more

A National Guardsman stands by the Mexican border in 2011.
(Image credit: John Moore/Getty Images)

1. Trump signs order to send troops to Mexico border

President Trump on Wednesday signed a proclamation calling for deploying an unspecified number of National Guard troops to the U.S. border with Mexico to help prevent illegal immigration. "The situation at the border has now reached a point of crisis," Trump said in his memo. Kirstjen Nielsen, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said she and the Pentagon are to work with border-state governors to get troops to the border as quickly as possible. Nielsen said the forces would focus on duties similar to those performed by troops dispatched under previous administrations, such as aerial surveillance. Critics said Trump was playing politics with immigration, noting that the number of people caught trying to illegally cross the southwest border in the 2017 fiscal year was 303,916, the lowest since 1971.

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Harold Maass, The Week US

Harold Maass is a contributing editor at The Week. He has been writing for The Week since the 2001 debut of the U.S. print edition and served as editor of TheWeek.com when it launched in 2008. Harold started his career as a newspaper reporter in South Florida and Haiti. He has previously worked for a variety of news outlets, including The Miami Herald, ABC News and Fox News, and for several years wrote a daily roundup of financial news for The Week and Yahoo Finance.