The Department of Defense is reportedly planning to relax regulations that prohibit service members from interacting with immigrants at the request of the Department of Homeland Security.
The reason for the change, according to the Washington post, is to clear the way for sending military lawyers and cooks to the border.
Senior Defense Department officials have recommended that acting defense secretary Patrick Shanahan approve a new request from the Department of Homeland Security to provide military lawyers, cooks and drivers to assist with handling a surge of migrants along the southern border.
The move would require authorizing waivers for more than 300 troops to a long-standing policy prohibiting military personnel from coming into contact with migrants.
I know there's no 1-to-1 comparison between Iraq and Afghanistan and our southern border with Mexico, but I can't escape this encroaching feeling that we're replacing nation-building abroad with nation-building on the border.
Asking military personnel to operate like private contractors or vendors for civilian authorities is eerily similar to what the military has been asked to do in the Middle East and Asia for nearly 20 years.
You know, when I think about it -- when I step back and consider that the "war on terror" began 18 years ago -- it's staggering. And now it feels like the Trump regime is waging a whole new war on terror, but this one is against immigrants looking for a better life, not foreign separatists.
Republicans pervert the mission of the military every time they control the White House.