Troops were set to leave the border at the end of January. Now they're staying through September.

Soldiers.
(Image credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images)

About 2,350 active-duty troops are stationed at the United States' southern border, and they aren't leaving any time soon.

This border patrol mission began in October and was initially scheduled to end on Dec. 15. That date was first extended to Jan. 31, and, on Monday, the Pentagon agreed to a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) request to bump it all the way to the end of September.

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Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.