The U.S. military will deploy over 5,200 troops, including soldiers who will be armed, to bolster President Donald Trump's efforts to secure the border with Mexico, a senior U.S. general said on Monday.
"I think the president has made it clear that border security is national security," General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, head of the U.S. military's Northern Command, told a news conference in Washington.
Gen. O'Shaughnessy told reporters that 800 soldiers were en route on Monday and that the remainder of the troops would be at the southwest border by the end of the week.
That's in addition to the more than 2,000 members of the National Guard already providing assistance at the border now. Officials say the troops will provide "mission enhancing capabilities" and will be armed.
The announcement comes as President Donald Trump has been trying to focus on the caravan just a week before the midterm elections.
The migrant caravan has been moving slowly north from Central America and its numbers have been dwindling.
The caravan is comprised of around 3,500 people as it draws near the U.S. border. While beginning in Honduras, it reached a peak of 7,000 people as many from other Central American nations joined in the 1,553 mile (2,500 kilometer) journey to reach the U.S. by foot.
The caravan mostly consists of Hondurans who are fleeing from violence and poverty in their home countries.
McAleenan said there was a similar caravan at the Guatemala-Mexico border region consisting of 3,000 people.
So far, local police in Mexico have not tried to stop the caravan. During the walk from the Guatemalan-Mexican border to the Mexican region of Tapachula, police set up road blocks twice with hundreds of riot-control equipped officers, but they were lifted before the migrants got there.
The deployment of troops is the latest in the Trump administration's effort to implement harsher border security measures.
On Friday, Secretary of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen unveiled the first completed section of the border wall that was first announced by Trump on his campaign trail for the presidential election.
Troops being sent to the border, however, will not be engaging in law enforcement activities but will be acting in support roles for already present border patrol agents.
In April, frustrated by lack of progress on the wall, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered the National Guard to help secure the border in four southwestern states. There are currently 2,100 National Guard troops along the borders of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.
Also in April, Trump raised the prospect of sending active-duty military forces to the border to block illegal immigration, raising questions in Congress and among legal experts about troop deployments on American soil.