“In the spring of 2020, Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary, was alarmed to learn of an idea under discussion at a top military command and at the Department of Homeland Security to send as many as 250,000 troops — more than half the active U.S. Army, and a sixth of all American forces — to the southern border in what would have been the largest use of the military inside the United States since the Civil War.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/trump-border.html?referringSource=articleShare
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/19/us/politics/trump-border.html?referringSource=articleShare