Background Briefing on DOD Actions Responding to President Trump's Executive Order on Securing our Border

View Online Background Briefing on DOD Actions Responding to President Trump's Executive Order on Securing our Border Jan. 22, 2025 MODERATOR:  Good afternoon, everyone, I appreciate you sticking around today. Thanks very much for joining us for today's background briefing on the Department of Defense deployment to the southwest border. As a reminder, today's call and briefing is on background attributable to a senior defense official and senior military official. Please note that I will call on reporters. We'll try to get as many of your questions as possible given the time frame. We'll look to end today's briefing at approximately 17:30 hours. With that, I will turn over to our senior defense official followed by our senior military official for any opening comments. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  So, I just want to say thanks for coming today. As you're aware, President Trump issued several executive orders aimed at addressing the situation on our southern border and securing the border. And he did that on Monday night. And so, right now, we're talking — this is a situation right around 36 hours from when he issued that executive order. So, keep that in mind as we make the comment. So, I think you'll see a lot of movement that has been done inside this building and that we actually have — we have actions that are taking place that are both in the statement and that will — the senior defense official will be able to address. But once again, is this a frame, this is 36 hours after the EO, so that's something to keep in mind as you report on this. So, the DOD, as you say in the statement, is working together, further together with the DHS, including deployment of additional forces and we'll go into that at the southern border by the end of this week, but those deployments have begun now. This afternoon, the acting secretary of defense released that statement outlining the details and this is — once again, we're going to be talking about — this is working not only with DHS, but it's also working with the State Department because obviously there's clearance to go into the countries. And so, we're working together with them as well. So, the department's dedicated to executing on President Trump's orders and supporting the DHS efforts to secure our border and enforce immigration laws. With that, I'll turn it over to our senior military official for any comments at the start. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Thanks, sir. I'll just give you guys a quick rundown of where we sit today. As our senior defense official mentioned, as directed by the acting secretary of defense, we're taking immediate action to meet the president's intent for the declared national emergency at the southwest border in working together with the Department of Homeland Security and Customs and Border Protection to deploy additional personnel. As part of that, we'll also be providing aerial support, rotary wing and airlift capability, and deploying some intelligence analysts for enhanced detection and monitoring activities and potentially some intelligence assets as well. Yesterday, the acting secretary of defense authorized us to deploy about 1,500 service members to support and work together with Customs and Border Protection down in San Diego and El Paso. That includes 1,000 Army personnel, including a battalion headquarters; 500 Marines, these had been operating or on call and ready, to operate in support of the California wildfires, but they were released from that mission and now are being reassigned for duty at the southwest border. These forces will work on the emplacement of physical barriers and other border missions. First operations for them should commence within the next 24 to 48 hours. They're moving right now as we sit here. That'll bring the total number of service members on the southwest border to approximately 4,000, that 60 percent increase that is in the statement that was released earlier. We anticipate that overall, on the southwest border, they'll provide real time situational awareness of persons, vehicles, vessels and aircraft and work with the CBP on operator level maintenance and movement and staging of Customs and Border Patrol assets. There's also some aerial support that's being provided. We have UH-72 helicopters that are at the border in support of CBP. They're flying today; the first missions, about six sorties, happened earlier today using those UH-72s. Additionally, US Transportation Command is positioning four total airlift aircraft, that's two C-17s and two C-130s, down in San Diego and El Paso to support the movement of personnel. We're coordinating with the Department of State and the interagency, as our senior defense official mentioned, on the details of the diplomatic clearances, etc., for that line of effort. Finally, we are doing some intelligence analyst support, as I mentioned at the outset, that is to assist with some intelligence needs on the southwest border that have been long-standing requirements for those with that mission. We're in the process of sourcing those requirements right now. We also anticipate that there could be some additional airborne intelligence, surveillance and support assets that would move down to the border to increase situational awareness. In the end, moving forward, we'll continue to take all appropriate action at the direction of the president to work with DHS on regaining full operational control at the border. So, thank you very much. MODERATOR:  Thank you. We'll go with AP first, Lita or Tara. Who drew the short straw? Q:  I'll go. Can you clarify just a couple of things and then I have a question. Senior military official, you mentioned aircraft, helicopters flying. Are those active duty that are newly there or were those previously there? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  No, those aircraft were previously there. I'd have to get back to you on the exact composition, which compo they came from, guard or reserve or active duty. They have been there for a while. They had been in a training status, but they were reactivated for operational missions yesterday by the acting secretary. Q:  Okay, so on that how many active duty have already arrived? And then secondly, for either one of you, will there be any use of US military bases for detention? And what is the secretary's thought at this point, or the president's thought at this point, on the use of the Insurrection Act? Thanks. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  On the last question, I would just refer you to the White House on that one because they speak for the president. And senior military official, I would refer you to the first part of her question. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, so on the number of personnel that have arrived at the border so far, I don't have the exact number for you. I can go back and try to get that. But they started moving earlier today. We had plans for about three companies' worth of personnel, so that's somewhere in the couple hundred range who were moving today. I just don't know if they've actually arrived or if it'll be sometime overnight or in the morning. Q:  On the bases? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  Bases used for detention. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Oh, yeah, on bases used for detention and whatnot, we've had no requests for any assistance with that yet. If they do come in, we'll obviously evaluate those. MODERATOR:  Jen? Q:  Thank you. Will the troops be armed? And will they be engaged in law enforcement? And why do you need a national emergency declared in order for the troops to operate down there? Or did you need a national emergency for authorities? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah — did you want to go first? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  I would just say that — well, you can speak to the authorities and then I'll finish up on the second part of your question. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, so, on the arming or not arming, that decision is typically left to the commander of US Northern Command based on the situation on the ground in different sectors. So, we have had troops that have been armed at various times down there. It's really just based on what the particular security situation is. As of right now, none of the forces that we're sending there are intended to be used for law enforcement. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  Right, and then I would just say to the point about using the existing authorities, those existing authorities were there, but they were not used because there was a different president. Now we have a president who has a different approach to the border. MODERATOR:  Nancy? Q:  Could you clarify something you said earlier about needing to consult the State Department. Where are these — are there any troops going to Mexico? Why was there a need to engage the State Department? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  What I would say is, look, these are deportation flights, so they're going out of the country. And so, the State Department has the decision making and has the relationships that they're working with those countries that will ultimately be the source to where — or to the destination to where these flights are going. Q:  So, this is not for the ground forces. This is for the flight, strictly? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  That's correct. For the deportation flights. Helicopter flights and others, obviously, there's no — but deportation flights to another country. That's why the State Department is involved. Q:  And can you help me understand how many US troops are supporting the deportation flights? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  That's a good question. For aircraft, it would be aircrew and associated maintenance. We have some additional aircraft on call. I'd say overall, it's 100 or less right now. Q:  And one last clarifying point. You talked about removing them because of the California wildfires. Was the determination made that they were not needed anymore or that this was the priority mission? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  No, that's a great question. We had had those 500 Marines on call under FEMA mission assignment to be ready to assist with the California wildfires, not with direct firefighting, but to free up firefighters from other tasks. Even though they were on that mission assignment and on call to act within 24 hours, FEMA never activated that and pulled them forward. And so, as the fires have gotten more under control, FEMA released that mission assignment over the weekend. And so, they were a force that was ready, already on prepared to deploy orders. And it's an engineering capability as well. So, well fit for the task that we think we'll be performing. Q:  Thank you. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  And one last clarification on that. When you — and it says so in the statement and the senior military official made clear in his comments earlier, is that the crew and associated maintenance for those as well as for the intelligence analysts, that is a separate number from the 1,500 ground troops, so that's not part of it. So, those are extra — extra personnel. Q:  Thank you. MODERATOR:  OK, Tom. Q:  Yeah, you talk here in the statement about in short order you develop and execute additional missions. So, should we expect thousands more soldiers and Marines to be sent to the border? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  Well, I would leave it to the senior defense official to talk about the actual mission support, but what the department — the president has been clear to the department that he wants to see as much — this is a huge priority for him that this is an emergency declaration here on the border. And so, what the acting secretary is doing right now with this first step, once again 36 hours after it was done. What he's doing here is this is the initial effort that we can do right away and then that we anticipate many additional missions after this. This is just the start. This is an initial step, and we are anticipating many further missions on that point. And the senior military official can talk to how we're prepared to support that. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, I think Tom, the only thing I would really add as our senior defense official hit it really well, is as we work together with DHS and CBP and look at this, it's going to be an iterative process to go where are the things that need to be filled? What capabilities have you requested previously or what new requests do you have? They'll be asking you at the same time, what do you have that you could give me. And we'll just kind of have to go back and forth with them to flush this out. But I would anticipate that there'll be additional requests, and we're — Q:  —You said ballpark. We're talking hundreds, if not thousands of troops, correct? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Just from where I sit, I'd be way premature for me to say that just 36 hours into this. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  These are additional missions that will be developed and it's — we can't give you a number on that. But this is going to be a big priority for the department under the acting secretary and the secretary that will be coming on board. Q:  Gentlemen, thanks for your time. Dan Lamothe, Washington Post. There was a fair amount of reporting this afternoon suggesting 10,000 as a planning number. Can you put any context to that? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  (Inaudible), we anticipated that question. That's an important clarification because some outlets were reporting that, and this is an important clarification that we're giving you now. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, I think 10,000 could be the number, as we just mentioned with Tom, but we don't know. It's kind of too early to tell as we're in the planning process with our interagency partners. What I would tell you is there's been no pushback from the joint force or the department on whatever the requirement is. The president's made it very clear with his executive orders and declaration of national emergency. So, think of other big national emergencies that we've had in the past declared by the president, we're going to source them to the best of our ability as those requests come in. MODERATOR: Courtney. Q:  So, just one very quick clarification on that defense — senior military official, sorry. The update — so we – was this first order is up to 10,000 then, it's just that you're not — you've not missioned it to that yet? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  No, right, right now the order is a 60 percent increase up to 4,000 and ongoing planning to see what else is required. Q:  So, the 10,000, I'm not clear on the 10,000 number then, I'm sorry. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  It came out in the open press earlier today. Q:  OK. So, you're not at 10,000 yet, but that's something that could be happening in the future. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  So, I would just get away from the 10,000 number altogether because what the senior military official said earlier, and you can clarify this, is just that there was no number given to the DOD from the White House or from any other DHS or anything. They're waiting — and this is support. So, what it goes up to is fine, but there was no number. There was reporting earlier that there was a number of 10,000 that somehow the DOD pushed back on that. There was never a number given. They said how can you support and in working with DHS and CBP, we decided to give them as much as we could right now and there will be very likely additional missions, this is just the start. So, any reporting that there was any walk back from a request from the White House or anybody else is absolutely not the case. Q:  And then just a really quick one for you, senior defense official, is since this is the very first thing out of the box for the Trump administration for the Pentagon is would you say that the border mission is now the top priority for the Department of Defense? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Every mission is a priority for the Department of Defense. This is a priority for the president, that's why it was moved out on very quickly. 36 hours you have aircraft in the air, you've got troops that are on the move to get out there on the border. So, this is something that is — you can just judge by how rapidly this is put together and how the building and the forces and the combatant commanders got together to make this happen in such a short amount of time. That should signal the priority here, but every mission is a priority for the department. And the commander in chief, in his executive orders — these are many — these are several dozen executive orders that that deal with the border. It's clearly a priority for the president and we're moving out and executing on it. MODERATOR:  Konstantin. Q:  Thanks. Gentlemen, it sounds like you haven't ruled out troops on the border being armed. Can you speak at all to what the rules of engagement would be for any troops that are armed on the border? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  I can speak to that very briefly. The first thing is when we're — whenever you're dealing with law enforcement situations under whatever authority you find there, you don't actually end up applying the rules of engagement per se. You have rules on the use of force. There are some of our forces such as those in the National Guard that are much more familiar with those because they support civil authorities with law enforcement in their home states from time to time. Active-duty forces typically do not have that training, but it would be standing rules for the use of force that would apply. And typically, what we would do is apply the rules of whoever the partner law enforcement agency was that we were supporting. So, it would depend exactly on the lay down of the command and control in a particular sector with CBP or local officials, etc. The only place where the rules of engagement do apply is you always have the inherent right to self-defense and our forces would always have that. Q:  Just to pull on a thread a little bit, in terms of the active-duty troops that don't have a law enforcement background, are they undergoing any sort of additional training or briefings in terms of their authorities? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, not right now, but that's because they haven't been asked to come forward and perform a law enforcement function yet. MODERATOR:  We'll do two more. Oren? Q:  A quick clarification question and one more. The initial tranche of 1,500, are they taking on the role that we already know of the 2,200 troops there? Or are they already picking up additional missions that were not there? SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  2,500. Q:  Oh, right, sorry. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL: Sorry. Q:  Is this initial tranche going down that's already arriving, are they picking up additional missions or are they just expanding the role of the troops that are already on the border? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  A little bit of each, so the participation and temporary barrier construction is something that hasn't been done in the recent past. So, that will be an additional mission. Most of the others are things that were under previous RFAs, and it's bolstering our capacity to perform in those areas. Q:  And then my other quick question was, given the number of troops you're talking about potentially in the expansion of the missions and the number of missions, are you prepared and planning for the possibility of pulling troops from other deployments or task forces to be able to send them to the southern border? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, that's a good question. We talked about this a little bit earlier today. The way that this initial set of forces was decided upon where we would pull them from, the Army forces are part of an order that we have that provides on hand forces to the commander of US Northern Command that he's able to access with the secretary's consent from time to time for a variety of different civil emergency type functions. So, think hurricanes or wildfires or anything like that, whatever it is. So, broad access to activating those forces, secretary approval to employ them. So, that makes them a force that wouldn't affect our readiness to perform other missions outside the continental United States. And then the Marine forces, those 500 were specifically chosen to be detailed against the wildfires and now to this because of where they were in the deployment cycle. So, they're not taking away from future readiness or future deployments yet. As we get into potentially larger numbers as we continue to do the planning, we'll make that judgment. That's really a big part of our job is to look at what is the risk to mission, risk to force with that over the set of global priorities that the senior defense official was talking about. UNKNOWN:  We'll do a couple more since we have some time. SENIOR DEFENSE OFFICIAL:  Let me just make one emphasis here, as the senior military official said, is that not only is the 10,000 figure never — was never requested, this other issue that came up about are we pulling Marines off of fire — off of duty supporting the fires. Once again, they were ready for that mission, but they were not yet doing that mission. So, it's not taking them away from duty on the supporting the firefighting effort. MODERATOR:  Yeah, Mike. Q:  Yeah, 1,000 troops is about — I'm Mike Glenn with the Washington Times. 1,000 troops is about the size of a large battalion. Is that — is it specifically a battalion going or are you picking troops sort of randomly or is it an engineering unit? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yeah, no, the 1,000 are not an engineering unit. They're coming from a variety of different places, company size elements that will come in and then a battalion headquarters will be put on top of them. It'll be a composite organization. MODERATOR:  Okay, Luis. Q:  Senior military official, you mentioned that in the past, the troops that have been deployed to the border have been armed. But at the time they had their clips not in their weapons. Is that what is going to happen here when they go with their weapons? Or is it more — is it different this time around, that they will have — SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  —Yeah, unfortunately, I don't know that I can answer that — to that tactical level of detail. NORTHCOM has made the decision to arm forces at the border a few times since I've been in the seat. And so, again, it just kind of comes and goes based on the security environment, but unfortunately, I don't know the tactical level detail that you're asking. MODERATOR:  I have to go to Chris for the last question. Q:  Thank you, sir. A couple clarifying questions. Are those 100 personnel supporting the airlift mission, Air Force, the C-17s and C-130s and the 100 or so personnel, is that correct? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  Yes, that's right. Q:  You mentioned — SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  —And that's just a wag of the 100, depending on how you count the maintenance package and all of those things. Q:  And then the — you mentioned possible airborne assets for situational awareness. Are you talking about manned ISR platform, drones, helicopters? I mean, what sort of — SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  —We're looking at all of the above. Good question, Chris. And this would be a multi-service at the tactical level, a lot of the ground units have now tactical UAS. So, they might bring in — they can provide localized intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in their particular area. Obviously, the Army's got MQ-1s, Air Force has MQ-9s, over various times in the past provided some level of support. And then you have manned platforms that could fly in support as well. So, that is still not fully decided yet. We're waiting to refine what the requirement is working with NORTHCOM on that, but we'll let you know as soon as we've dubbed it out a bit. Q:  And then my last question, just — you mentioned a variety of units. Are you able to say what units? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  I'd rather not. Thanks. Q:  I have a very quick clarifying — Q:  —One clarification on the Army forces. Are these 1,000, are they guard and reserve who are being called to active duty? SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  These are Title 10 forces. The whole — all the 1,500 plus up are Title 10 forces, the Marines and the Army. Q:  They're all Title 10 right now. They're not being called to active duty. SENIOR MILITARY OFFICIAL:  That's correct. MODERATOR:  Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate you sticking around late today for this. Thank you, officials, for taking the We'll have more information to provide at a later time. Thank you very much. Have a great evening. Again, this is attributable to a — on background to a senior defense official and a senior military official. Thank you very much.

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