President-Elect Donald Trump has indicated there will be a role for the U.S. military in his immigration-enforcement plans. What role the military will play, if any, is unclear however, but it should be noted that military assets have been used at various times under each of the past eight administrations.
Tents housing illegal aliens at Guantanamo Bay in the 1990s. Photo from the U.S. Navy Seabee Museum.
Migrant Detentions During and After the Mariel Boatlift and Haitian Coup. As the Congressional Research Service (CRS) has reported, military installations were used for detention during and after both the 1980 Mariel Boatlift and the September 1991 overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Betrand Aristide in a military coup:
Starting in April 1980, Eglin Air Force Base, FL, Fort Indiantown Gap, PA, Fort McCoy, WI, and Fort Chaffee, AR, were used as refugee resettlement centers to house an influx of Cuban refugees who arrived in the United States via the “Mariel Boatlift.” By October 1980, Eglin Air Force Base, Fort Indiantown Gap, and Fort McCoy were closed and their remaining refugees were transferred to Fort Chaffee. Fort Chaffee housed 25,390 refugees, of whom about 5,800 had been transferred from Fort McCoy, Eglin Air Force Base, and Fort Indiantown Gap. The refugee center at Fort Chaffee closed in February 1982.
. . .
In 1991, the United States opened a refugee center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for Haitians fleeing their country by boat in the aftermath of a coup. At one point, nearly 13,000 Haitians were housed there. The refugee center closed in July 1993 but it was reopened in June 1994 to again house Haitian refugees fleeing their country. In August 1994, the United States reversed a previous policy allowing Cuban refugees into the United States and required instead that they be brought to Guantanamo Bay. Approximately 12,000 Haitians and 33,000 Cubans were housed at Guantanamo Bay in September of 1994. The refugee camp closed in February 1996.
“Operation Jump Start”. In May 2006, President George W. Bush launched “Operation Jump Start”, pursuant to which National Guard troops were “to assist the Border Patrol in restoring order” to the Southwest border.
An airman from the Texas Air National Guard assisting the Border Patrol along the Rio Grande. U.S. Army photo.
As the National Guard has subsequently explained:
For the next two years, up to 6,000 National Guard soldiers and airmen at a time rotated in contingents throughout the Southwest. They monitored electronic surveillance systems, manned isolated outposts, and flew helicopters equipped with sophisticated radar systems, their presence freeing up hundreds of Border Patrol agents to perform the actual apprehension of illegal migrants and drugs. Guard engineers built dozens of roads, particularly in the mountains of southeastern Arizona, increasing the Border Patrol’s mobility and earning the gratitude of its agents, who still patrol this rugged country on horseback as they have done since the 1920s.
“Operation Phalanx”. Thereafter, in July 2010, President Obama initiated “Operation Phalanx”. As the U.S. Army noted in May 2011:
Operation Phalanx is the successor operation to Operation Jump Start. ... Operation Phalanx, scheduled to end in June 2011, provides support primarily from the Southwest Border States of California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
...
The National Guard Soldiers and Airmen assigned to Operation Phalanx have been serving as a force multiplier for the U.S. Border Patrol by spotting border intrusions and providing technical support. The National Guard has performed tasks such as ground surveillance, criminal investigative analysis, command and control, mobile communications, transportation, logistics, and training support.
Housing Migrant Children on Military Installations under Obama. Phalanx was not the only instance in which President Obama utilized military assets as an adjunct to his border policies.
During a surge in unaccompanied alien children and family migrants in 2014, the Obama administration placed more than 7,700 migrant children on three military bases — Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla., Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) near San Antonio, Texas, and Naval Base Ventura County in California — between May and August of that year under the supervision of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Those migrant-child detentions on military installations met with controversy from both sides of the aisle, with Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) going to Lackland AFB that June to complain that:
It is unacceptable to have children housed in facilities like this. ... Equally unacceptable, though, is to have a president promoting policies that entice children to navigate more than a thousand miles away from home, going through the most treacherous conditions, facing things like human trafficking and sexual assault.
Trump’s “Memorandum on Securing the Southern Border”. In April 2018, President Trump issued a “Memorandum on Securing the Southern Border of the United States”, which stated:
The Secretary of Defense shall support the Department of Homeland Security in securing the southern border and taking other necessary actions to stop the flow of deadly drugs and other contraband, gang members and other criminals, and illegal aliens into this country. The Secretary of Defense shall request use of National Guard personnel to assist in fulfilling this mission, pursuant to section 502 of title 32, United States Code, and may use such other authorities as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.
That triggered “Operation Guardian Support”, pursuant to which thousands of National Guard troops were deployed by their respective state governors to the border, again to fill support roles.
By that October, the Department of Defense (DoD) launched a follow-on program, “Operation Faithful Patriot”, under which activity duty troops were deployed to the border to provide DHS “with ‘planning assistance, engineering support, fixed and rotary wing aviation support to move personnel’ as well as medical assistance, temporary housing and protective equipment for border patrol members”.
Note that although the name “Faithful Patriot” was discontinued in November 2018 (“a US defense official said the Pentagon decided the mission should not have been designated a named operation because it was supporting US border authorities”), military assistance to CBP did not.
The Army Corps of Engineers assisting with border wall construction. U.S. Army photo.
Border Emergency and “the Wall”. In fact, about 5,200 troops remained at the border in March 2020 when Title 42 took effect, in part as a continuation of what had been Faithful Patriot but also in response to Presidential Proclamation (PP) 9844, “Declaring a National Emergency Concerning the Southern Border of the United States”, which President Trump issued in February 2019.
That PP directed:
The Secretary of Defense, or the Secretary of each relevant military department, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law, [to] order as many units or members of the Ready Reserve to active duty as the Secretary concerned, in the Secretary’s discretion, determines to be appropriate to assist and support the activities of the Secretary of Homeland Security at the southern border.
Ten days later, DHS asked DoD for assistance in constructing “fences [,] roads, and lighting” within 11 specified project areas, “to block drug-smuggling corridors across the international boundary between the United States and Mexico”.
The reprogramming of DoD funds for fence and infrastructure construction went through various legal actions but was eventually allowed to proceed by the Supreme Court.
Biden Administration Border Efforts. While troops continued to serve at the border after Trump left office, they stopped doing construction work there.
That’s because PP 9844 was quickly rescinded by President Biden on Inauguration Day 2021 when he issued PP 10142, “Termination of Emergency With Respect to the Southern Border of the United States and Redirection of Funds Diverted to Border Wall Construction” — a proclamation that also “paused” civilian work on CBP’s “Border Wall System”.
In May 2023, however, Biden administration Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin approved a DHS request to send 1,500 active-duty troops to the Southwest border, bolstering a force of 2,500 National Guard troops who were already there.
In March, the Department of Defense (DoD) reported:
Defense support to civil authorities is an important DOD activity, supporting the American public and U.S. partners in responding to disasters, public health emergencies and border security, so long as these activities do not impair warfighting readiness, [Rebecca Zimmerman, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs and Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs] noted.
Today between 2,500 and 3,000 military personnel are deployed to the Southwest border, supporting U.S. Customs and Border Protection activities. DOD has supported this mission for 18 of the last 21 years, she said.
Rep. Byron Donalds on “This Week”. On December 8, Trump ally Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) appeared on ABC News’ “This Week” and laid out the parameters of what immigration-enforcement assistance he expects the incoming administration to request from DoD.
As he explained to host Martha Raddatz:
I think if you're going to use military assets, that's in the last resorts, but that's only for logistical purposes, Martha. And so, I think that what we have to be very careful of is not to try to throw out this idea that you're going to have troops in the United States going door to door. That is not going to happen.
As the foregoing reveals, that’s fairly consistent with similar requests for DoD immigration-enforcement assistance under recent administrations — including the current one.
It’s to be expected for politicians and the media to speculate about what the president-elect’s promised immigration-enforcement regime will look like. But when it comes to the use of the military, it’s likely not going to be much different from what we’ve seen in the immediate past — though it will probably be more effective.