CNN: 'Thousands' of Troops Will Be Sent to US-Mexico Border - In Addition to Troops Already Stationed There

“Thousands” of additional troops will be sent to the US southern border with Mexico in the near future, CNNwrites , citing sources.

It is not yet clear which units will be sent to the border, but the first wave will include about 1,500 troops, according to CNN.

Now, according to CNN, there are already about 2,200 Joint Task Force-North troops on the border, who help support the work of Customs and Border Protection, performing mainly logistical and bureaucratic tasks - data entry, monitoring and vehicle maintenance.

There is also a National Guard contingent on the border. About 4,500 troops are involved in the mission, according to the Texas Military Department.

The additional forces will perform many of the same tasks and are expected to augment and strengthen Joint Task Force-North, sources told CNN. They will also assist in command and control centers and provide intelligence specialists to assess threats and migrant flows, CNN sources said.

More active-duty troops are expected to be sent to the border in the coming weeks and months, one official said. The first wave, he said, should lay the groundwork for a larger military presence on the US-Mexico border.

• Donald Trump, immediately after taking office as US President on January 20, announced that he would declare a state of emergency on the border with Mexico and send troops there to curb illegal migration. “All illegal entry will be stopped immediately, and we will begin returning millions of criminal migrants back to where they came from,” Trump said in his inaugural address. Almost immediately after his inauguration, police and security forces began to close the US-Mexico border.