The guard was deployed with tank-like vehicles.
QUICK FACTS:
- The National Guard has been deployed to the border by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) just days after Abbott declared the influx of migrants at the border to be an invasion.
- Tank-like vehicles, the M113 armored personnel carrier, were reportedly sent with the troops to 10 positions along the border to assist with maintaining the border and keep illegal immigrants from crossing.
- “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 Military Department said in a statement. “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.”
EQUIPMENT:
- The Texas Tribune reported that “Armored personnel carriers like the M113 are designed to carry infantry troops across modern battlefields alongside tanks. They can be equipped with a range of weapons: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, antitank missiles or even large cannons similar to those mounted on tanks. It’s not clear what weapons, if any, will be on the Texas Guard’s M113s at the border.”
- “Such vehicles are by definition bulletproof and can withstand small explosions. In the civilian world, lighter, wheeled armored personnel carriers are sometimes used to carry police SWAT teams,” the news org detailed.
- “Lovingly known as the ‘battle taxi’ by Army troops, the Vietnam-era M113 features tracks instead of wheels, leading observers to sometimes confuse them for tanks. Tracks allow heavy armored vehicles to traverse difficult terrain — such as ditches or muddy areas — with a lower risk of becoming stuck.”
BACKGROUND:
- Less than two weeks before the deployment of guardsmen, Abbott announced he was invoking his state’s “invasion clauses” that would allow him to call in the military members to the border, American Faith previously reported.
- The Republican governor also plans to use the forces to construct a border wall and deploy gunboats and that he will “fully authorize Texas to take unprecedented measures to defend our state against an invasion.”
- The Department of Public Safety is also being called to the border to arrest and return illegal immigrants who have crossed into Texas illegally.
