Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. CQ Brown is visiting the U.S.-Mexico border to assess the military’s progress in fortifying sections of the wall, the Associated Press reported on Friday.
The Defense Department deployed 1,500 active-duty troops to the U.S.-Mexico border just two days after President Donald Trump’s inauguration. More servicemembers were sent to the border earlier this month.
There are approximately 9,200 U.S. troops on the border, 4,200 of whom were deployed under federal orders, according to the Associated Press. The other 5,000 are National Guard troops.
The Trump administration on Wednesday designated eight gangs and cartels, including Tren de Aragua, the Sinaloa Cartel and MS-13, as foreign terrorist organizations. This move expands the U.S. government’s ability to crack down on criminal organizations operating in its territory.
In a public notice on the matter, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that there was a “sufficient factual basis” under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act to issue the designations.
On Wednesday, U.S. NORTHCOM Commander Gen. Gregory M. Guillot and Mexican Secretary of National Defense Gen. Ricardo Trevilla Trejo spoke about coordinating along the border and signed a mutual agreement on cooperative activities, the Defense Department announced.
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The agreement allegedly calls for an increase in information sharing and improved communications methods, as well as a call for Mexico and the U.S. to respect each other’s sovereignty.
Troop deployments and wall fortifications are parts of Trump’s crackdown on the southern border.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration began sending flights of illegal immigrants to the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities in Cuba.
Around 30,000 “criminal illegal aliens” could be held in the base that once housed hundreds of prisoners, only 15 of whom were left before Trump began sending migrants there.
