DHS requests thousands of National Guard troops stay on southern border past September: US general
Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck said on March 16, 2021, that the Department of Homeland Security had asked to keep roughly 4,000 National Guard troops at the southern border beyond their scheduled September expiration, as migrant encounters climbed to their highest February total since 2006.
The Department of Homeland Security has asked the Pentagon to keep thousands of National Guard troops deployed on the southern border beyond their current orders, which expire at the end of September, Air Force Gen. Glen VanHerck told reporters at a Pentagon news conference on March 16, 2021, according to Fox News. "There is a request on the street to ask for additional support," VanHerck said.
VanHerck, who leads U.S. forces in North America, said the final decision on whether to grant the extension would rest with the Secretary of Defense. As of the March briefing, more than 4,000 National Guard troops were stationed at the border with Mexico, drawn from 22 states, according to the report.
The exact scope of the additional support DHS requested -- how many troops, or which specific duties -- was not detailed in the available reporting beyond VanHerck's general characterization of a pending request.
What the deployed troops do
The National Guard detachment assists Customs and Border Protection with the "detection and monitoring" of migrants attempting to cross, and operates 24 helicopters in support of that mission, Fox News reported.
The roughly 4,000 troops VanHerck described were drawn from 22 states and, beyond detection and monitoring, also provided aviation support and ground support intended to free up law enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, and Homeland Security personnel for other duties, according to reporting on VanHerck's remarks retrieved in this session. That deployment figure represented a still-substantial presence but one below the roughly 5,000 National Guard troops that had been stationed at the border at an earlier peak in 2019, per the same reporting.
The border numbers behind the request
The request came as Customs and Border Protection encountered roughly 100,000 migrants in February 2021, the highest total for that month since 2006, according to the report, which said the U.S. was tracking toward encountering more migrants than in the preceding 20 years combined. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas characterized the situation as "difficult" and directed the Federal Emergency Management Agency to help house unaccompanied children and family units, while the Biden administration avoided using the word "crisis," per the report.
The FEMA directive behind the border numbers
Mayorkas' directive to FEMA, announced March 13, 2021, called for a government-wide effort over the following 90 days to safely receive, shelter and transfer unaccompanied children arriving at the southwest border, according to the Department of Homeland Security's own archived announcement of the move. Through February of fiscal year 2021, Customs and Border Protection had encountered 29,792 unaccompanied children and single minors along the southwest border, per the same DHS accounting -- a volume that helps explain why the National Guard request VanHerck described a few days later was framed around detection, monitoring and logistics support rather than a narrower drug- or contraband-interdiction mission.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by Fox News and the Department of Homeland Security. It restores a story originally published on this site in March 2021; figures are as reported at the time.