Troop drawdown from Asia for Border Security?

If border security is such a big deal for this Administration, then why not reposition *some* of the thousands of troops stationed abroad (such as those in Japan and S Korea) and delegate border security duties to them?

It's not as if there's actually going to be any serious conflict in that part of the world anytime soon, not to mention that a global conflict is highly, *highly* unlikely anytime soon, given that the main threats are fanatical terrorists, pirates and drug wars.

Thoughts?

a reply to: AnakinWayneII

Cuz they still have a mission to do and most bases are paper thin on peeps as it is.

a reply to: AnakinWayneII



I think it has to do with the Posse Comitatus Act.

Wiki:

Posse Comitatus Act of 1878

An act making appropriations for the support of the Army for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, eighteen hundred and seventy-nine, and for other purposes.

Signed into law by President Rutherford B. Hayes on June 18, 1878

The Posse Comitatus Act is a United States federal law (18 U.S.C. § 1385, original at 20 Stat. 152) signed on June 18, 1878, by President Rutherford B. Hayes. The purpose of the act – in concert with the Insurrection Act of 1807 – is to limit the powers of the federal government in using federal military personnel to enforce domestic policies within the United States. It was passed as an amendment to an army appropriation bill following the end of Reconstruction and was updated in 1956 and 1981.

The act specifically applies only to the United States Army and, as amended in 1956, the United States Air Force. Although the act does not explicitly mention the United States Navy and the United States Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy has prescribed regulations that are generally construed to give the act force with respect to those services as well. The act does not prevent the Army National Guard or the Air National Guard under state authority from acting in a law enforcement capacity within its home state or in an adjacent state if invited by that state's governor. The United States Coast Guard, which operates under the Department of Homeland Security, is not covered by the Posse Comitatus Act either, primarily because although the Coast Guard is an armed service, it also has both a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency mission.

The more than 5,200 active-duty troops being sent by President Donald Trump to the U.S.-Mexico border will be limited in what they can do under a federal law that restricts the military from engaging in law enforcement on American soil.


That means the troops will not be allowed to detain immigrants, seize drugs from smugglers or have any direct involvement in stopping a migrant caravan that is still about 1,000 miles from the nearest border crossing.


Instead, their role will largely mirror that of the existing National Guard troops — about 2,000 in all — deployed to the border over the past six months, including providing helicopter support for border missions, installing concrete barriers and repairing and maintaining vehicles. The new troops will include military police, combat engineers and helicopter companies equipped with advanced technology to help detect people at night.

www.militarytimes.com...

Should be considered an invasion and if you don't want to be part of it then stay home and fight to make your own country better instead of trying to turn a sovereign nation into the place you thought was so bad and just couldn't STAY HOME

a reply to: StoutBroux

I'll buy that. But there have been plenty of exceptions where the military does black ops police actions where civilians have had guns pointed at them in certain "quarantined" areas within the continental USA which is totally illegal.

Kecksburg PA. in the 60's was just one of those. I suppose a military operation at the border would be too public and too exposed to intense scrutiny.

But on the other hand the act you mentioned is only prohibited against US citizens/residents, not an invading force from elsewhere?