Description
This video is sponsored by Aura. Visit https://aura.com/militarydotcom
Hundreds more U.S. troops have surged to the Rio Grande Valley. So what are they actually doing down there?
On Sept. 26, someone on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande opened fire on a Coast Guard boat near Garceño, Texas. About a week later, Joint Task Force-Southern Border launched Operation Unified Resolve and moved hundreds of service members into the valley, and Mexico answered with 500 soldiers of its own. Meanwhile, the Army has shot down cartel drones with a high-energy laser, and a Justice Department legal opinion says soldiers can arrest people who trespass along certain stretches of the border.
In this episode of Defense Debrief, Justin Taylor breaks down what the roughly 8,000 troops on the border mission are actually allowed to do, why a law from 1878 called the Posse Comitatus Act keeps most of them from arresting anyone, how the National Guard's rules change depending on who's giving the orders, and how new National Defense Areas let soldiers detain trespassers on military-controlled strips of land. Plus, the Pentagon laser that was fired at party balloons, the gap in the troops' counter-drone gear and the $2.6 billion price tag.
Ever pulled border duty? Tell us what it was really like in the comments.
CHAPTERS
0:00 What are troops doing on the border?
1:14 Shots fired at the Coast Guard
1:46 Operation Unified Resolve
2:46 Sponsor: Aura
3:54 What the surge is actually for
4:31 Lasers vs. cartel drones
6:13 The counter-drone gap
6:52 How the border mission started
8:00 Operation Lone Star
8:39 The Posse Comitatus Act
9:34 The National Guard's three sets of rules
10:56 National Defense Areas
12:58 The legal fight over NDAs
13:50 What it costs
14:25 What comes next
#Military #Army #SouthernBorder #NationalGuard #MilitaryNews #DefenseDebrief
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