Marines Rotate Border Force as Service's Immigration Operations Expand

The Marine Corps swapped out its task force assigned to the southern border mission with a combat logistics unit after nearly six months of repairing the barrier wall, the military said in a news release Monday evening.

Following President Donald Trump's inauguration in January, thousands of troops from across the country were rapidly spun up to the U.S.-Mexico border as part of his aggressive immigration enforcement agenda, which has since seen the military increasingly entwined with federal agents charged with detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants.

Task Force Sapper, made up of 500 mostly engineering and logistical Marines out of Camp Pendleton, California, was one of the first units to arrive at the border in the days following Trump's inauguration. They began the transition process with another batch of Marines from the same base in recent weeks, Joint Task Force-Southern Border said in the release.

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The new contingent is called Task Force Forge and is made up of Marines from Combat Logistics Battalion 15, which falls under the I Marine Expeditionary Force. The release did not provide details on how many Marines are part of the new task force, but noted they would be providing "critical engineering and logistical support" at the border.

Joint Task Force-Southern Border and I MEF acknowledged Military.com's questions about the nature of the mission and whether the relief would constitute a more routine rotation of Marines to the southern border, but neither responded by publication time Tuesday.

Military.com profiled the unit's predecessor, Task Force Sapper, along with soldiers assigned to the San Diego area in April, when Marines were observed welding reinforcements to the barrier wall that separates the two countries, laying down concertina wire and standing up armed "guardian angel" patrols meant to protect their counterparts as they worked.

Some Marines assigned to Task Force Sapper, which was made up of Marines from 1st Combat Engineer Battalion, initially believed the mission would last about a month. As it stretched past that assumption, leaders began planning for a nine-month operation.

The news release said that Task Force Forge will establish itself in Yuma, Arizona, which likely reflects the progression of barrier wall reinforcement that started on the coast of California and moved eastward during the mission.

"The Marines and sailors of Task Force Forge are ready to build on the accomplishments of our predecessors," Lt. Col. Colin Graham, commanding officer of Task Force Forge, said in the release. "Our mission is clear: Support our federal partners and Joint Task Force-Southern Border, strengthen operational readiness, and support upholding the territorial integrity of our nation's border with professionalism and precision."

Military.com reported that Marines assigned to the border were staying in hotels in the San Diego area after they completed day shifts at the barrier wall.

At the time, they were working on a stretch of border wall the Marines dubbed "no man's land" as the military requisitioned a steady stream of materials applied to the barrier. They were allowed various levels of liberty and alcohol consumption, and many troops in San Diego told Military.com they were taking advantage of being posted so close to a major metropolitan area.

It was unclear how the mission or conditions might differ for Task Force Forge, compared to its predecessor task force at the border. The Trump administration has federalized stretches of border land for military use in an effort to deter migrant crossings and placed detention authorities in the hands of troops, most recently in Arizona. It was also unclear whether Task Force Forge would be operating in the newly militarized zones.

The presence of Task Force Sapper caused local consternation after Marines laid concertina wire over a garden once meant to foster American-Mexican unity. But the garden has been increasingly militarized and walled-off after decades of creeping restrictions and as immigration fears proliferated in the U.S.

Meanwhile, outside of the border mission, the Marine Corps has also taken on new roles under Trump's immigration crackdown.

In May, Military.com was first to report that the Marine Corps had begun a partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement that posted federal immigration agents at multiple bases across the country in an effort to prevent unlawful gate access by foreign nationals. As of last month, the program had resulted in the detention of at least one person -- a Russian national at Marine Corps Base Hawaii.

Hundreds of active-duty Marines deployed to Los Angeles amid anti-ICE immigration raid protests in the city last month and, within hours of arriving at one of the federal buildings they were tasked with protecting, Marines detained an Army veteran looking to grab paperwork from the local Department of Veterans Affairs location.

Earlier this month, 200 Marines were sent in a "first wave" of troops to support ICE operations in Florida, with hundreds more expected to deploy to other states across the country.

Related: 48 Hours with Marines and Soldiers on the US Southern Border