The Department of Defense has deployed 700 troops to assist ICE Barbie Kristi Noem at detention facilities in three Sun Belt states.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office confirmed the marching orders in a Tuesday press release, revealing soldiers were sent to Florida, Texas, and Louisiana last week.
The Pentagon said the troops are “operating in a Title 10 duty status,” meaning they will not be permitted to make arrests. Instead, the military says they will “provide logistical support” and assist with “administrative and clerical functions.”
“They will not directly participate in law enforcement activities,” the Pentagon added.
Those deployed were described only as “military personnel” who were “drawn from all components.” A Department of Defense official told the Daily Beast that it could not yet say which branch, or branches, the activated troops belonged to.
The defense official said those deployed “will perform case management, provide logistical support such as vehicle maintenance and refueling, and execute clerical functions associated with the processing of illegal aliens at ICE detention facilities.”
The watchdog TRAC Immigration reports that, as of June 1, 51,302 people are in ICE custody. Of those, 12,511 are being held in Texas, the most of any state, and 7,263 are in Louisiana, the second most. Florida did not crack the top five listed.
The latest deployment is separate from the 700 Marines that President Donald Trump personally ordered to Los Angeles last week amid demonstrations that protested ICE arresting non-criminal farmworkers and day workers in Southern California.
Hegseth was grilled by Democratic lawmakers last week when called to testify about why domestic deployments of troops were necessary right now.
“Threatening to use our own troops on our own citizens at such scale is unprecedented, it is unconstitutional, and it is downright un-American,” Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat, told Hegseth.
Hegseth repeatedly countered that the U.S. Constitution permits the deployment of troops domestically to support federal law enforcement agents, like ICE.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom disagrees. The Democrat went as far as to sue the Trump administration over the deployment of Marines and Trump’s activation of the National Guard without his request.
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