Soldiers are arriving at the border — but hardly any migrants are crossing
Trump’s order to send troops to the border comes as the number of migrant crossings is plummeting. Residents in some border cities wonder what the soldiers will be doing.
February 15, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. ESTToday at 6:00 a.m. EST
National Guard members stand watch over the U.S.-Mexico border in El Paso, on Jan. 21. (Anna Watts For The Washington Post)
By Arelis R. Hernández
DEL RIO, Texas — There are signs all over town that the troops have arrived.
The two hotels closest to the Border Patrol headquarters are sold out. A local gym and a barbershop are advertising discounts for men and women in uniform. And every Thursday, diners can use their military IDs to save on food and drinks at Molcajetes Mexican restaurant.
Several hundred active-duty soldiers arrived in the Texas city of Del Rio in late January after President Donald Trump declared an invasion and ordered troops to deploy to the southern border. The U.S. Department of Defense says 3,600 servicemen and servicewomen, mostly from the U.S. Army and Marines, have now been sent to help patrol the nation’s land border with Mexico.
But their arrival comes at one of the quietest moments at the border in the past decade. Agents with the Border Patrol sector that includes Del Rio and the neighboring city of Eagle Pass have been apprehending fewer than 50 people a day since late January. That’s a stark decline from 2023, when as many as 5,000 migrants surrendered to agents after crossing the Rio Grande daily.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/immigration/2025/02/15/border-soldiers-texas-migrants-trump/
