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1,500 active-duty troops being sent to southern border ahead of expected migrant surge

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Title 42 restrictions are ending on May 11.

The Department of Defense plans to send 1,500 additional active-duty troops to support the security mission along the U.S.-Mexico border for a temporary three-month period, according to a U.S. official, ahead of an expected surge of migrants with the end of Title 42 restrictions on May 11.

They will join 2,500 National Guard members already there on an active-duty status.

PHOTO: A member of the Texas Army National Guard asks a migrant from China to come out of his hiding place after the man and others were smuggled across the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Fronton, Texas, on April 5, 2023.
A member of the Texas Army National Guard asks a migrant from China to come out of his hiding place after the man and others were smuggled across the Rio Grande river into the United States from Mexico, in Fronton, Texas, on April 5, 2023.
Staff/Reuters

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Their mission will be to help with ground-based detection and monitoring, data entry, and warehouse support.

The move comes after an executive order from President Joe Biden last week that authorized the secretaries of the Department of Homeland Security and DOD "to order to active duty such units and individual members of the Ready Reserve" to better respond to the "the unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States posed by international drug trafficking."

PHOTO: Migrants line up after being detained by US authorities at the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 30, 2023.
Migrants line up after being detained by US authorities at the US-Mexico border in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, on April 30, 2023.
Christian Chavez/AP

MORE: What is Title 42 -- the Trump-era immigration order at the US-Mexico border?

The 1,500 additional troops will be from the active-duty military, not from the National Guard or reserves, at least initially, according to the official.

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