PRESIDIO, Texas — Apart from the thrum of traffic, it's a quiet afternoon in this town of along the southwest border where the Trump administration has deployed some 10,000 active-duty soldiers – a move that's part of the president's campaign promise to stop irregular crossings into the United States.
"I feel like they're basically turning this place into a military zone, or a wanna-be conflict zone when in reality it isn't," said local resident Anibal Galindo of the deployment.
Galindo, who grew up here, says the region already has a strong law enforcement presence, from local and state police to the U.S. Border Patrol and other federal agencies, along with towers, traffic checkpoints and .
"The surveillance is here," said Galindo. "So what else do you want?"
Presidio is in the Big Bend sector of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection – a stretch covering , including a handful of other small towns and . Throughout this area, the Trump administration recently announced the deployment of .
The Army says that these soldiers won't be arresting people suspected of being in the U.S. illegally, and instead, will offer "logistical support" to Border Patrol agents.
"We will not be actively on patrols," Maj. Jared Stefani, who's leading the Big Bend area deployment, said at . "We'll be at detection and monitoring sites to provide that information to [the] Border Patrol to then go out and do their law enforcement function."
Judge Joe Portillo, the top official in Presidio County, said he welcomes the military's presence even though border arrest numbers in this sector are low. According to , there were 165 encounters in February.
"Presidio never experienced some of the influxes you saw in San Diego, or in Nogales, Arizona or in Eagle Pass, Del Rio, McAllen, El Paso," said Portillo, an Army veteran.
Across the southwestern border, there's been in the amount of people crossing the U.S.-Mexico border — a number that and that has continued to fall .
Still, Lloyd Easterling, the chief border patrol agent for the area, says the Army's presence is needed.
The troops are "giving us those additional eyes and ears out there to not only secure the border, but figure out when and where people came through," said Easterling.
As part of the Army's deployment to this rugged terrain, the military is sending Stryker vehicles, a 19-ton combat vehicle on eight wheels that has been used in .
The use of these armored vehicles mark a new phase in the government's approach to border security, and the Trump administration has been touting their use, sharing photos and .
"The intent is to put them in places where, operationally, it makes the most sense and provides the most impact for us," Easterling said in March. "We want people to see where they are, because it's a method of deterrence."
, and before that during the 1990s. And in 1997, during a deployment of Marines on a drug surveillance mission, . The young man was .
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