Insights From the Fight Podcast: Episode 9 - Establishing JTF Southern Border

Okay, thank you, gentlemen.

2025 marked the 101st year of the United States Border Patrol securing the international border.

was also the first time a joint task force would be established to gain full operational control of the dividing line between the U.S. and Mexico border.

In February of 2025, 10th Mountain Division received official notice to deploy and establish the core of JTF Southern Border assigned to U.S. NORTHCOM while integrating with the U.S. Border Patrol.

Within a matter of days, boots were on the ground at Fort stretching 1,954 miles from San Diego, California to the Gulf of Mexico.

Let's initially talk from your initial notification and receiving orders to serve as a JTF.

What was the key guidance that was given to the staff to begin planning and defining the problems as part of your mission analysis?

Thanks, Jeremy.

So there are a couple of things that were involved with this.

We wanted to understand the operational environment down there on the border.

So this was a no notice appointment.

We were actually getting ready to move into a warfighter that was going to start on Sunday.

And then on Thursday, we learned that we were going to go down to the border.

So the three planning efforts that went into this, we conducted MDMP to create a movement order.

Then we moved through design to understand the problem set down there at the border.

And then we went into MDMP again to reset the forces on the border.

So that timeline, again, last week of January, we received the word that we were going to deploy.

Immediately, we sent two person teams, usually a major and a sergeant major down to the border to try and find what actual infrastructure was down there.

Colonel Rich Satterlund, our division chief, led us through the planning process.

So that first week of February, really we had to organize the division to start to deploy.

So at Fort Drum, that meant we had one brigade going out the door to OIR, At the same time, we were starting to deploy the division headquarters.

So everyone got as much packed as much as they could, got our expeditionary equipment together.

And at that point, we started to receive the feedback from these teams that Fort Huachuca was the best place to house JTF.

We started to push units out and the staff moved on to the design process to understand the problem set.

So looking at the history of the southern border, looking at the mission set that was involved, we knew that our there on the border.