President Trump's national security advisers this week discussed increasing the military's presence at the border and having troops build and run tent city detention camps, NBC News reported on Friday.
This idea reportedly came up at several recent meetings, including one at the White House on Tuesday, with the question of whether this could be legally accomplished and whether it would be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act among the points of discussion. Three officials told NBC the camps are "very unlikely" to happen, although Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan is reportedly open to sending more troops to the border "so long as their assigned mission is within the law."
The discussion reportedly continued after the meeting ended, although a border official said they were not aware of any plans to actually build camps. However, national security advisers at the Tuesday meeting reportedly did discuss having the military assess land where new tent cities and an immigration processing center are to be built.
The Pentagon in February deployed an additional 3,000 active duty droops to the southern border, and Trump on Wednesday suggested he is "going to have to call up more military." These troops are legally prevented from interacting with migrants directly, a fact Trump bemoaned, complaining that the military "can't act like they would normally act because if they got a little rough, everybody would go crazy."
