The US military stationed on the US-Mexico border is allowed to open fire if necessary.. The corresponding memorandum was approved the night before.. As the Military Times writes today, the "cabinet order" was signed by the head of the White House office, John Kelly, and not the country's president, Donald Trump..

This allows the "contingent of the US Department of Defense to perform those defense actions that the Secretary of Defense considers necessary" to protect border control officers.. This includes, inter alia, "the use of force (including fire to kill, if necessary), crowd control, temporary detention and a short search". According to the publication, in the case of the use of weapons, Washington may face a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. , according to which the military in the United States is prohibited to assume police functions. Now on the US-Mexico border are about 5,900 troops and 2,100 employees of the US National Guard. Such measures have been taken in connection with the approach to the borders of the States of a caravan of migrants of several thousand people from Central America. According to the latest data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Mexico, in the area of ??the border cities of Tijuana and Mexicali, 5.6 thousand migrants from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador concentrated, reports RIA Novosti.. Some of the people walking in the caravan returned to their homeland or decided to stay in Mexico.

Back in early November, Trump declared that the US military could open fire against migrants if they start throwing stones at them, since they must be treated as weapons.. "We are not going to tolerate it. They will throw stones at our military - our military respond. We will consider - I say (to the military), consider this (stones) as a rifle. If they throw stones, as they threw at the Mexican police, I say, consider this (firing from) a rifle, "the president said. Many American media interpreted his words precisely as permission to open fire on refugees..