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On Friday, Gov. Kay Ivey announced that Alabama will be sending 125 soldiers from Alabama’s 152nd Military Police Company to the United States’ southern border with Mexico.
“Over the last four years, securing the Southern Border has not been a priority for the Biden-Harris Administration, creating devastating consequences for every state. Let me assure you Alabama will continue doing all we can to support the mission of securing our Border,” Ivey said. “These 125 Alabama soldiers will support Customs and Border Protection operations, and I thank them, as well as their families, for their tremendous service to our country.”
Based out of Hartselle, Alabama, the 152nd will serve along the southern border for approximately 400 days. Alabama already has 269 soldiers deployed along the southern border from the Mobile’s 226th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade and Tallassee’s 158th Surface Maintenance Company headquartered. Those soldiers will begin the process of returning from to Alabama from the border in phases as the 125 new soldiers arrive.
Ivey has previously overseen the deployment of over 500 Alabama National Guard soldiers to the border.
According to West Point’s Modern War Institute, armed forces stationed at the border perform limited duties in support of law enforcement. Military personnel stationed at the border cannot perform searches or seizures, make arrests, collect evidence, discharge weapons, surveil or pursue individuals, or use physical force. However, the language used in the Department of Defense’s policies remains vague, leaving some ambiguity as to exactly what roles military personnel can and cannot fulfill along the southern border.
Ivey’s deployment of additional Alabama servicemen and women to the border comes amid an increasing spread of misinformation concerning immigration in the state, propogated by Ivey’s GOP colleagues. For instance, earlier this month, Alabama’s Attorney General Steve Marshall made unfounded claims that “Venezuelan gangs” were being flown into the country under the Biden administration’s immigration policy.
U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-AL, also engaged in misleading, conspiratorial rhetoric, claiming that the Democratic party is intentionally increasing immigration rates as part of a secret ploy to gain greater electoral support. Tuberville also recently voiced his support for Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen’s attempt to purge over 3,000 voters from Alabama’s voter rolls, claiming that those voters were actually noncitizens. A federal court overturned that program, with Allen admitting “that his purge list included thousands of United States citizens” who are legally registered to vote and that he had also improperly referred them for criminal investigation.
