The Pentagon is sending more troops to the border, but there's no 'intention right now to shoot at people'

Customs and Border Protection agent Tekae Michael walks inside the Border Infrastructure System which separates the U.S. from Mexico with a fence on April 17, 2018 in San Diego, California

(Image credit: Frederic J. Brown/Getty Images)

published 27 October 2018

"The secretary of defense has approved providing mission-enhancing capabilities to the Department of Homeland Security" at the southern border, the Pentagon said in a statement Friday. "U.S. Northern Command will be in the lead for the duration of the operation and is in support of Custom and Border Protection."

The announcement did not say how many troops would be sent, but a Thursday report suggested it would be around 800 deployed to provide "fencing, wall materials, and other technical support."

Also Thursday, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said on Fox News there is presently no plan for the troops to shoot migrants. "We do not have any intention right now to shoot at people, but they will be apprehended, however," Nielsen said. "But I also take my officers and agents, their own personal safety, extraordinarily seriously. They do have the ability, of course, to defend themselves."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.