Ex-Pentagon chief ruled out Trump idea of sending 250,000 troops to Mexico border: Report

Former US President Donald Trump's Pentagon chief Mark Esper had ruled out the idea of sending around 250,000 troops to the Mexico border. According to the New York Times, back in 2020, members of the Trump administration had suggested closing off the southern border by deploying a massive contingent of US military personnel.

Stephen Miller, who was the architect of Trump's immigration agenda, had urged the Homeland Security Department to develop a plan for the number of troops that would be needed to seal the entire border with Mexico. 

However, then-defence secretary Mark Esper thought that the idea was outrageous. While speaking to the media outlet, officials familiar with the talks, who declined to speak on record, said that Esper was enraged by Miller’s plan. According to the officials, Esper believed that deploying so many troops to the border would undermine US military readiness around the world. 

Trump’s anti-refugee sentiment

Meanwhile, it is worth noting that by 2020, Trump’s obsession with the southern border was well known. Just after the 2018 congressional elections, Trump had sent around 5,200 troops to the border with Mexico, angering military officials, who believed that the forces were being used as political properties. He had even demanded a wall with flesh-piercing spikes and even asked about shooting migrants in the leg as they crossed the border. 

As per reports, Trump even pressed his top aides to send forces into Mexico to hunt drug cartels. However, he hesitated only after aides suggested that military raids inside Mexico could look like the US was committing an act of war in the eyes of the world.

In the end, rather than a vast military deployment to the border, the Trump administration used an obscure public health rule, which remains in effect to this day - to deny asylum and effectively shut down entry into the US from Mexico during the ongoing pandemic. 

Trump has repeatedly made anti-refugee comments. Back in 2017, the New York Times had quoted the former US President as saying that around 15,000 Haitians sent by the nation’s government to the US 'all had AIDS'. However, back then, the White House had denied the claim and said that Trump did not make any such remark.

The following year, the Washington Post reported that Trump wanted immigrants from countries like Norway, instead of 'sh**hole countries' when asked about immigrants from Haiti, El Salvador, and African nations as a part of a bipartisan immigration bill.  

(Image: AP)