A sure sign the president is campaigning for re-election is that he is doing something that may help the disaster which is the Biden border crisis. He is deploying 1500 troops to the southern border. This is being done in anticipation of the additional chaos that will happen on May 11 when Title 42 expires. There are tens of thousands of people waiting for that day to come.

Soldiers will come from a variety of active duty Army units and will serve in mostly administrative roles and transport roles. This will free up law enforcement and Border Patrol agents who have been pulled from working on the ground at the border to do administrative work. This is very much like what former President Trump did during his time in office. The troops are armed for self-defense but are not intended to assist with law enforcement.

If only Joe Biden had not stubbornly insisted on doing away with the previous administration’s policies and agreements to secure the southern border, the Biden border crisis would have been easier to control. Instead, Biden campaigned on eliminating deportations by ICE, and a come one come all attitude for those looking to cross the border. We know what happened – millions have been apprehended crossing the border illegally and cartels now run parts of the border. Thanks, Joe.

The Border Patrol agents working along the southern border have been so overwhelmed by the thousands of illegal immigrants crossing into the country each week that some have been pulled from their normal jobs to go do desk work. They have been processing the illegal immigrants who have been apprehended instead of patrolling the border.

The troops will be deployed for 90 days. Their duties will include assisting with transportation needs, administrative duties, narcotics detection, data entry, and warehouse support. The deployment was requested by the Department of Homeland Security and approved by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. DHS thinks the deployment is necessary because of “an anticipated increase in migration.” It will allow border officials to “perform their critical law enforcement missions.”

Military personnel, DHS stressed, “have never, and will not, perform law enforcement activities or interact with migrants.” A federal law dating back to 1878 generally prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement.

Troy Miller, the top official at CBP, recently told Congress that his agency is preparing for as many as 10,000 migrants to cross the southern border every day after the end of Title 42, which would almost double the daily average in March. Daily migrant arrivals have already increased to more than 7,000 in recent days.

There are already about 2,500 National Guard troops stationed on the border to assist Border Patrol. Their mission will remain unchanged.

It is past time that Biden did this. Its been done many times in the past by both Republican and Democrat administrations since 2006. Trump authorized dozens of deployments to crack down on illegal border crossings. It’s a dereliction of duty that Biden allowed the crisis to get as out of control as it is before acting. A country without secure borders is a country without sovereignty.