Texas Guard to send tank-like military vehicles to the border

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Three days after Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted a legally doubtful invocation of the “invasion clause” of the U.S. and Texas constitutions over the excessive variety of migrant encounters at the Texas-Mexico border, his border mission is ready to embrace armored personnel carriers designed to carry troops into battle alongside tanks, in accordance to a planning doc obtained by Army Times and The Texas Tribune.

The order issued Thursday by Texas Military Department officers to the headquarters overseeing Operation Lone Star reveals that the National Guard will quickly deploy 10 M113 armored personnel provider vehicles to the border.

According to the order, round 50 troopers will probably be educated to function the vehicles, and state officers will determine 10 positions to station them alongside the border.

The Texas Military Department mentioned in a written assertion Friday that as well as to the 10 armored vehicles, the Texas National Guard is growing “aircraft flights and security efforts” on the border.

“These actions are part of a larger strategy to use every available tool to fight back against the record-breaking level of illegal immigration,” the division mentioned. “The Texas National Guard is taking unprecedented measures to safeguard our border and to repel and turn-back immigrants trying to cross the border illegally.”

Abbott’s workplace didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in March 2021, sending 1000’s of troopers and Texas Department of Public Safety troopers to the border whereas accusing the Biden administration of failing to safe the border. The effort has included inserting shipping containers and rows of DPS and military vehicles along the Rio Grande to deter migrants from crossing, plus utilizing state cash and donations to build border barriers.

Armored personnel carriers like the M113 are designed to carry infantry troops throughout fashionable battlefields alongside tanks. They will be geared up with a spread of weapons: heavy machine weapons, grenade launchers, antitank missiles and even giant cannons related to these mounted on tanks. It’s not clear what weapons, if any, will probably be on the Texas Guard’s M113s at the border.

Such vehicles are by definition bulletproof and might stand up to small explosions. In the civilian world, lighter, wheeled armored personnel carriers are typically used to carry police SWAT groups.

Lovingly referred to as the “battle taxi” by Army troops, the Vietnam-era M113 options tracks as an alternative of wheels, main observers to typically confuse them for tanks. Tracks enable heavy armored vehicles to traverse troublesome terrain — akin to ditches or muddy areas — with a decrease danger of turning into caught.

The U.S. has despatched 200 of the growing older vehicles to Ukraine to help that nation’s battle towards invading Russians.

It’s not clear why the Texas Military Department plans to deploy the vehicles to the border. Since Operation Lone Star started, the company has not publicly acknowledged any incidents through which the safety supplied by the extra nimble Humvee vehicles deployed there was insufficient.

Since Operation Lone Star started, the variety of migrants apprehended alongside the Texas-Mexico border has increased regardless of the expenditure of $4 billion and the involuntary deployment of up to 6,500 Texas Military Department troops.

Concerns with Operation Lone Star’s misdemeanor trespassing arrests of migrants even have sparked a Department of Justice civil rights probe.

Additionally, Texas Guard troops have complained about pay issues, poor dwelling situations and inconsistent steerage from leaders since the operation expanded massively final fall.

The news organizations revealed these points in a collection of tales scrutinizing the mission’s hasty mobilization process, how company leaders ignored the results of a feedback survey and its budget overruns.

In latest months, the military division has taken steps to handle troopers’ issues and slowly diminished the variety of troops on the border. Three of the division’s prime leaders additionally abruptly departed the company in March and April.

Ten troopers linked to the mission have died since September 2021, all through accident or suicide.