US troops position razor wire along the border with Mexico to deter the caravan of illegal immigrants headed for the United States. Photo by Todd Bensman.

Todd Bensman, Senior National Security Fellow, border and homeland security expert, writer, and speaker, penned this post on LinkedIn, as part of his series on his self-embedded coverage of U.S. Armys' 19th Engineer Battalion deployed to the Texas-Mexico border. The troops are  assigned along the Rio Grande to halt the advance of the caravans of migrants in Mexico seeking to cross the border into the United States:

As a quick aside, the purpose of my visit was to learn how President Donald Trump’s brand new 5,000-soldier border mission deployment was progressing. I wanted to see for myself how the troops were being used in daily routine and to learn how they might be used as the migrant columns from Honduras moved closer to the border. Critics and proponents alike may take from all this what they will but here’s the bottom line up front of what I saw and learned, for good or ill:

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New troops and equipment were still rolling into at least two main camps in South Texas the week before Thanksgiving, one at the sleepy Donna Port of Entry and the other at the busier Hidalgo Port of Entry. Tents were going up. Heavy construction equipment and large trucks had been brought in and parked, along with Humvees. Helicopters reconnoitered above the camps or flew past them.

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Although unconfirmed, in the town of Weslaco about 15 miles inland from the river, acres of land cleared, leveled and newly fenced, at least to my mind, bore the hallmarks of one of the “tent cities” of the sort DHS said would be used for extended detentions of caravaners seeking asylum.

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The compound was at least 25 acres. It was very freshly cleared and surrounded by fencing with “Warning: military installation” signs posted at intervals while a large abandoned former furniture store nearby was taken over by the army. No tents were set up but rows of port-o-potties could be seen and large stationary CBP lighting banks had been set up throughout the largely empty interior. The space would be good to store heavy construction equipment and vehicles too.

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