The U.S. military on Tuesday admitted that there is “no specific timeline for redeployment” of troops that were sent to the Southwest border, despite an Army officer’s comment that troops will be done “by Christmas,” Politico reports.
President Donald Trump ordered roughly 5,800 troops to join the 2,000 stationed at the U.S.-Mexico border, in response to a caravan of migrants making its way through Mexico.
“No specific timeline for redeployment has been determined,” a spokesman for U.S. Northern Command’s Army component wrote in an email. “We will provide more details as they become available.”
The statement added, “We may shift some forces to other areas of the border to engineering support missions in California and other areas.”
Army Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who is heading the deployment, said in an interview with Politico on Monday that “the actual behavior of the caravans is more and more headed toward Tijuana, so while I’ve got to keep some forces in Texas, I’ve now shifted my main effort to California.”
“You’re going to see a couple of things over the next week — some redeployments,” he continued, saying that “by Christmas, it should be all. Our end date right now is 15 December, and I’ve got no indications from anybody that we’ll go beyond that.”