Soldiers from the Kentucky-based 19th Engineer Battalion have installed barbed and concertina wire in Laredo, Texas (AFP Photo/Thomas WATKINS)
On late November 20th, White House Chief of Staff John Kelly signed a memo allowing troops stationed along the southwest border to use lethal force.
Donald Trump didn’t sign the memo, however an earlier “decision memo” that came to the same recommendations that were contained in the “cabinet memo” was signed by him, according to documents obtained by Newsweek.
This is a significant escalation of the support role they had been tasked with and is directly against a 140-year-old law that bars the military from operating within US boundaries.
The mission of the 5,800 troops stationed at the border now includes protecting Customs and Border Protection agents. Until this change of orders, the troops currently deployed in California, Arizona and Texas, who had been lining the border with concertina wire and providing only logistical support to CBP personnel.
US Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis confirmed the new guidelines on November 21st, downplaying how much interaction troops would have with migrants. He claimed that most soldiers do not carry weapons and that the military would steer clear from civilian law enforcement such as arrests, which are forbidden under in the Posse Comitatus Act.
Mattis further emphasized that he would only use his expanded authorities in response to a request from the Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen.
“I now have the authority to do more,” Mattis told reporters. “Now we’ll see what she asks me.”
The Military Times cited legal experts who claimed that this could potentially represent a fundamental shift in the way the US military is used.
“The Congressional Research Service, the non-partisan research agency for Congress, has found that “case law indicates that ‘execution of the law’ in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act occurs (a) when the Armed Forces perform tasks assigned to an organ of civil government, or (b) when the Armed Forces perform tasks assigned to them solely for purposes of civilian government.” However, the law also allows the president “to use military force to suppress insurrection or to enforce federal authority,” CRS has found.”
According to John Kelly, the directive was signed because there is a necessity for additional authorities because of “credible evidence and intelligence” have indicated that the thousands of migrants who have now made their way to the U.S. checkpoint near Tijuana, Mexico, “may prompt incidents of violence and disorder” that could threaten border officials.
Trump has been trying for months to use the military to seal the US-Mexico border, because he has been unsuccessful in persuading the Congress to fully fund a border wall. Thus, he has sought to make the military’s border presence more aggressive and suggested that he might send as many as 15,000 US troops to the border.
In October, just before the mid-term elections, Trump told troops they could consider migrants throwing rocks at them the use-of-force equivalent of migrants threatening them with firearms. Under current military rules of engagement, that would authorize a return of deadly force. The US President later backtracked on his comments saying that he never directed troops to shoot migrants and that Customs and Border Protection would take the lead in any such scenario.
This development contradicts an early report by the Military Times which cited the emergence of news that the Pentagon may bring some forces home several weeks after they were dispatched at the border. According to the incoming chairman of the House Armed Services Committee the operation was racially motivated, had politicized the military, and called for the troops to be pulled back home.
“The reports that President Trump is planning to withdraw some of the troops he sent to the border two weeks ago indicate just how empty, demagogic and racially motivated this political stunt was,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash. “It appears to be an admission that there was no justification for the mission in the first place. It was not a respectful use of our military to take service members away from their duties and send them to the border as politicized props, and President Trump should not have done it.”
On November 19th, Customs and Border Protection closed the San Ysidrio border checkpoint after receiving reports that migrants were planning to approach and overcome it en masse.
This AM, all of #SanYsidro Port of Entry's northbound lanes were temporarily closed to initiate additional port hardening efforts after @CBP officials were notified that a large # of caravan migrants were planning to rush the border in an attempt to gain illegal access to the US.
— Sec. Kirstjen Nielsen (@SecNielsen) November 19, 2018
How jewish of them.
Nope, how Israeli of them.
Well, the US can now do what they do best , murder unarmed civilians.
I stand corrected, but I fail to see the difference between the two.
One get’s you arrested and one gives you a chance for justice – in the UK anyway.
justice in a country that is totally controlled by NWO? well I can give you many examples that is not justice in UK. an illusion of justice yes but JUSTICE no.
I will not even answer as I have too much respect for you. Cheers.
PS And no, that does not mean I cannot answer.
the respect is mutual and what I said does not concern the population of the country, but the reality within the governing bodies, of the country. I can say or you the same thing of most countries in europe including mine minus lately Italy. When you are governed by traitors and sold out politicians, there is no justice.
RicharD will give you a wedgie any second now… Not fun… I should know!
What could possibly go wrong?
The US army BBQ van, doesn’t turn up on time.
Soros, what a nice job you are doing squandering more human lives for your agenda.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPZRQAqGxCo
Just machinegun them. Mortars are good too.
Will the mortars be using white phosphorus also?
Equating throwing stones with fire arms… and where did they learn it from… No wonder when Israel trains the US police and the National Guard and effectively control much of US government.
Slowly but surely the cogs are turning. I think we will witness it in our lifetime, US armed forces against their own population. Under the US guidance Pinochet did it, Colonels of Greece did it, Shah did it and so did many other US-backed dictators, not to mention Israelis.
“Equating throwing stones with fire arms” unfortunately the border patrol has that directive, even they have killed mexicans who are passing by with a flock of goats and a cane inside México and let drown people in the river Bravo, so it’s not a surprise, don’t be amazed
I was under the impression that “patriotic” vigilantes (read psychopaths who enjoy murder) do it.
Quite a stretch from repelling thousands of foreigners who are trying to force their way across our borders to “US armed forces against their own population”??? I don’t see the connection.
How the European migrants and thieves became the owners of our American land.
“…and is directly against a 140-year-old law that bars the military from operating within US boundaries”.
The defense of our country from foreign invasion across our borders is a legitimate function of the US armed forces. The law you refer to forbids the internal policing of the USA by US armed forces, it does not forbid the defense of our borders.. A cross-border assault by thousands of foreigners justifies a military response. Let’s builld that wall! Good fences make good neighbors.