At the US border, two U.S. troops were killed in a vehicle fall in New Mexico, and another U.S. military member was hospitalized in serious condition, marking the first known military deaths related to President Donald Trump’s expanded mission.
The accident occurred at 8:50 a.m. near the border town of Santa Teresa, west of El Paso, the military said in a statement. Three defense officials speaking on condition of anonymity as the matter is under investigation said a US Marine from Camp Pendleton, California. It was not immediately clear what kind of vehicle they were operating.
Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Pete Hegses, could not be immediately contacted for comment. The Doñaana County authorities were unable to do so either.
The Joint Task Force Southern Border, which oversees the military’s border mission from Fort Huachuca in Arizona, said in its statement that the identity of the deceased service member has been withheld until the family is notified.
The accident occurred when thousands of active-duty US troops incited from the Pacific to Texas as Trump attempted to seal the southern border at an illegal intersection. Marines are primarily concentrated in California, but people involved were assigned to reconnaissance missions on Tuesday as the Department of Defense seeks to improve understanding of the area, one defense official said.
The Trump administration shows that it intends to give US troops an even bigger role on the southern border.
On Monday, Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgham traveled to New Mexico to transfer control of about 110,000 acres of federally managed land to the Department of Defense, allowing the US military to support a more active role in the responsibility of binding illegal crosses. The plan to do this was first reported by the Washington Post last month and approved by Trump last week, which effectively transformed a 60-foot-wide land along the border known as the Roosevelt Reservation, into a satellite military facility.
MNA/