Democrats press Army secretary nominee if 'readiness' affected by southern border deployments

"Is there a cost in terms of readiness?" Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., the top Democrat in the Senate Armed Services Committee, asked Driscoll during his confirmation hearing on Thursday. 

"I think border security is national security," he went on. "We've had soldiers at the border for a number of years, and the Army stands ready for any mission."

"We're seeing now active duty military, Army, be sent to the border, being sent on missions right now to support" the Department of Homeland Security, she said. "But according to our Constitution, the US military active duty cannot perform law enforcement roles." 

"I'm deeply concerned that active duty troops are going to be forced into law enforcement roles, and we're already hearing stories that really, really touch right on the line," she said.  

"They're not properly trained. There's going to be an incident," she said. "Someone's going to get hurt, there's going to be some sort of blow up, and suddenly we're going to have a community that's deeply, deeply angry at uniformed military who were just told to go and drive those DHS vehicles through that building, perform support for somebody." 

"I reject the premise that the president or the secretary would ask for an order like that, but I will always follow the law," Driscoll said. 

Slotkin shot back: "Your predecessor, Army Secretary [Mark] Esper, had this exact thing that he wrote about in his book, 82nd Airborne Army was asked to come in and clean up a peaceful protest in Washington, DC. So I reject your rejection that this is theoretical."

"We're counting on you to protect the integrity of a non-political military that is not trained in law enforcement roles," Slotkin said. 

Immediately upon taking office, Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border and 1,500 active duty troops - 1,000 Army personnel and 500 Marines - deployed to the southern border. 

Trump also signed an executive order designating drug cartels in Latin America as foreign terrorist organizations, granting the military greater authority to interdict them.