DHS requests 20,000 National Guard troops to help with mass deportation

U.S. seeking deportation deals with countries

Trump medication seeks deportation deals with far-flung countries, docs show 04:02

The Department of Homeland Security has requested astir 20,000 National Guard troops to assistance with the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts, 2 U.S. officials told CBS News Thursday.

The Defense Department is inactive reviewing the request, and National Guard troops could beryllium pulled from antithetic states to assistance DHS. 

The officials said the troops are being requested to assistance instrumentality enforcement authorities with logistics and operations related to immigration actions successful the interior of the U.S., which would correspond the latest enlargement of the Trump administration's unprecedented usage of the subject to enactment its large-scale migration enforcement campaign.

There are already astir 8,600 national troops astatine the border. The U.S. subject has precocious created 2 National Defense Areas, constrictive ribbons of onshore stretching astir 230 miles on the borderline successful New Mexico and Texas, which are being treated arsenic extensions of subject bases. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited successful April and said "any amerciable attempting to participate this portion is entering a subject base, a federally protected area." He added that migrants crossing this portion would beryllium detained by some Customs and Border Protection and the Defense Department. 

The Navy has besides been ramping up enactment astatine the border. On Wednesday, the acting main of naval operations, Adm. James Kilby, told Congress the Navy is providing quality flights utilizing P-8 aircraft, 2 Navy destroyers, and a littoral combat vessel arsenic portion of the crackdown. 

Tricia McLaughlin, the adjunct caput for nationalist affairs astatine DHS, confirmed the department's petition for 20,000 National Guard members. 

"The Department of Homeland Security volition usage each instrumentality and assets disposable to get transgression amerciable aliens including pack members, murderers, pedophiles, and different convulsive criminals retired of our country," McLaughlin said successful a statement. 

In:
• Immigration
• United States Department of Homeland Security
• United States Department of Defense