Updated Nov. 1 -- Troops from 10 states, including Colorado, are set to be dispatched to the border in response to a caravan of Central American migrants that is largely composed of families with children and is weeks from reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to the Defense Department, the troops will come from North and South Carolina, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Georgia, Texas, Washington, Kentucky and Kansas.
They'll be stationed at an Air Force base and Army installation in Arizona, at several Marine facilities in the San Diego area, and in five locations in Texas, including naval and Army bases.
The document says the Defense Department has identified 7,000 troops who will be participating in the mission at the border. About 2,000 National Guard members are already dispatched at the southern border.
Gov. John Hickenlooper has said in the past he would not send the Colorado National Guard to the border to enforce family separation policies. He has no control over how active duty troops in the state are deployed.
President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Wednesday that the number of military troops deployed to the U.S.-Mexican border could go as high as 15,000.
Trump says that the U.S. was "going to be prepared" and that the migrants are "not coming into our country."
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis is pushing back on suggestions that the move to send thousands of active-duty troops to the Southwest border is a political stunt ahead of the midterm elections next week.
"We don't do stunts in this department," Mattis said.
The deployment of troops coincides with Trump considering an executive action to curtail the Constitution's guarantee of birthright citizenship, even though most legal scholars say that would require a new constitutional amendment.
