The soldiers will be tasked with conducting immigration application hearings, picking up migrants at the border and bringing food to migrants in detention.
The Pentagon is preparing to expand the role of the military along the US-Mexico border, loosening the long-standing “no contact with migrants” policy, the Washington Post reported Friday, citing internal Pentagon documents.
Several senior Pentagon officials have reportedly recommended that acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan approve a request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide military lawyers, cooks and drivers to assist US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents amid the surge of immigration along the Mexican border.
According to the proposal, military attorneys will assist with deportation hearings in order to speed up the process. Thousands of migrants apprehended by CBP have to be released into the community while their asylum applications are being reviewed, due to detention facilities already being overcrowded. The military lawyers would be detailed to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and would be supervised by ICE personnel, the document says.
The overwhelmed CBP is experiencing an “especially acute” shortage of drivers and people who can escort migrants to hospitals, the Washington Post reports. According to the report, migrants who cross the US border illegally en masse have taken to simply sitting down and waiting until CBP…
