While they may not be home for Thanksgiving, those thousands of Army troops who are stationed on the Southwest Border will likely be back in their beds for Christmas, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The head of San Antonio based Army North, Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, tells Politico that the first wave of troops will likely head home later this week after they completed stringing concertina wire and building base camps.
"You’re going to see a couple of things over the next week - some redeployments," Buchanan told the outlet.
The mission's end date right now is 15 December, and Buchanan said they will not go beyond that.
It's unclear if the troops will merely leave Texas and head to California, where the migrant caravan is expected to arrive, or be sent home all together.
The most visual part of their deployment in South Texas has been the stringing of razor wire.
Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) says nobody knows if that will stay.
"I asked that questions of our CBP friends on the border and they don’t know if that's something (the army) will take or if it will be there for a while."
If it were up to him, that razor wire would be gone.
"It gives the impression that it's a war zone."
He says it gives the wrong impression that South Texas is a dangerous place, and the caravan is full of dangerous people, when in reality he says the crime rate in his border district is lower than much of the nation.
U.S. Rep Will Hurd (R-San Antonio) says the razor wire and the army's presence is the symptom of a much larger problem. There are better ways to secure his border district.
"The way you do that is through technology and increase manpower."
His bill fixes border patrol pay, so agents are not leaving to get a better job.