The Pentagon will deploy nearly 200 intelligence and signals troops to the US border.
This deployment adds to the existing 10,000 troops already stationed border-wide amid President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown.
Eighty Army intelligence professionals from Fort Drum, New York, and Fort Bragg, North Carolina, will join the Joint Intelligence Task Force-Southern Border.
They will be augmented by 100 personnel from an unnamed Army signals unit.
U.S. Northern Command created the intelligence joint task force in February to integrate intelligence planning during the border mission.
The exact deployment timeline and personnel numbers will fluctuate as units rotate.
It remains unclear where the units will be specifically located along the border.
Military intelligence analysts sift through information to inform the head of the command.
They collaborate with organizations like the CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency.
These troops are prohibited from collecting intelligence on U.S. citizens.
The announcement follows authorization for service members in New Mexico to temporarily detain, search, and conduct crowd control against trespassers.
This is along a newly military-controlled strip of land called the National Defense Area.
On April 11, Trump transferred the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide stretch of border land, to the Pentagon.
This transfer aims to increase migrant apprehension.
Northern Command's intelligence activities are governed by U.S. attorney general-approved procedures and a 2017 policy on the Pentagon's Intelligence Oversight program.
These procedures balance national security information collection with the protection of individual rights.