What to know about US ground troops headed to the Middle East
U.S. Army paratroopers, assigned to 82nd Airborne Division, execute Joint Force Entries as part of a multinational exercise at Luna and Cincu, Romania, May 13-15, 2024. (US Army)
(WASHINGTON) — The Pentagon is preparing to surge as many as 5,000 troops to the Middle East — with some forces already in transit, according to two U.S. officials.
It’s a mix of Army paratroopers and Marines.
Among them are some 1,500 paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division, the Army’s premier ground combat unit based out of Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
There are also two Marine units likely headed to the region, according to the two U.S. officials.
The Airborne unit is designed to deploy on short notice and seize contested terrain by parachuting out of airplanes behind enemy lines.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean they would jump out of planes for a mission. The last time the 82nd Airborne parachuted into combat was the invasion of Panama in 1989. Before that, they did four jumps in World War II.
It’s unclear where the troops will land or when they will arrive. It’s likely they would flow into established U.S. hubs such as Jordan or Kuwait.
Additionally, Marine forces are already moving into position, the officials said. The 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, a 2,200-strong crisis response force, is slated to reach the Middle East this week after a transit by sea from Japan, according to the two officials.
Another Marine unit, the 11th MEU — also a 2,200-strong force — has begun sailing from California toward Japan and could ultimately be redirected to the Middle East as part of the buildup, the officials said. But any contribution from that force would take weeks to materialize because of time taken to get to that part of the world by ship.
The Marines and paratroopers are apart of “light infantry” units, meaning they are not arriving with any notable arsenal of heavily armored vehicles such as tanks.
Demolition of the East Wing of the White House, during construction on the new ballroom extension of the White House in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2025. (Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The White House on Thursday is expected to present the latest plans for the East Wing renovation project, in a public meeting of the National Capital Planning Commission.
An organization established by Congress to manage Washington-area federal projects, the NCPC has an agenda item for the “East Wing Modernization Project” on the schedule for its Jan. 8 meeting, which is open to the public and will be livestreamed.
In December, the National Trust for Historic Preservation filed a lawsuit to stop the East Wing construction project by claiming the administration had circumvented the required review process for federal projects.
In a hearing in that case, the administration told a federal judge it would submit plans for the project to the relevant federal oversight bodies.
The judge said he would hold a follow-up hearing on the White House’s process in January and declined to stop construction at the time.
Days later, the administration submitted formal applications and plans for the renovation project to the NCPC and the Commission of Fine Arts, a White House official confirmed to ABC News at the time.
In its filing in the case brought by the historic preservation group, the Justice Department argued that without a permanent ballroom, the White House can no longer meet the needs of the president as he fulfills his constitutional duty to “receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers.”
“It is entirely fitting, then, that the presidential residence and workplace be equipped for that purpose. Given modern needs, the White House is not,” the Justice Department argued.
Even as it determined in late August that the White House ballroom would have “no significant impact” on the surrounding grounds, the National Park Service did highlight some of the adverse effects of the project, presaging concerns that have since been echoed by preservationists, architects and designers.
“The new building’s larger footprint and height will dominate the eastern portion of the site, creating a visual imbalance with the more modestly scaled West Wing and Executive Mansion,” the NPS report noted. “Adding a second story to the East Colonnade will further modify the setting, contrasting with the single-story design of the West Colonnade and changing the traditional spatial organization and sightlines of the grounds.”
Such changes, the report indicated, “will adversely alter the design, setting, and feeling of the White House and grounds over the long-term,” while the destruction of the East Wing would result in “the permanent loss of a component that has been integral to White House operations since 1942.”
Still, the “environmental assessment” — prepared by the deputy director of the park service and signed by its comptroller — concluded that the benefits of a new ballroom for state functions would outweigh the adverse effects “by reducing reliance on temporary event infrastructure, minimizing wear on the grounds, and improving functionality for large gatherings.”
The White House announced the ballroom construction project in late July, and demolition began suddenly on the East Wing in late October, when workers were spotted tearing down the wing of the White House that contained the first lady’s offices.
Trump has repeatedly increased the size and cost of the construction 90,000 square foot ballroom project. Last month, he said it would cost $400 million, after an initial estimate of $200 million. The White House has said the project will be funded by private donations.
The president has also moved to fill both advisory boards supervising the ballroom project with his own aides and appointees.
He also spent some of his vacation working on the project: Last Friday in Florida, he visited Arc Stone & Tile, an Italian stone importer, and spent roughly an hour at the showroom before purchasing onyx and marble for the ballroom.
The White House expects to make its final presentations to the Commission of Fine Arts in February, and to the National Capitol Planning Commission in March, and will submit its final plan for the project by the end of January, a White House official told ABC News.
U.S. Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) arrives to testify during a confirmation hearing to be the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security in the Dirksen Senate Office Building on March 18, 2026 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Sen. Markwayne Mullin’s nomination to be the secretary of Homeland Security narrowly cleared a committee vote Thursday morning with the help of Democratic Sen. John Fetterman, teeing the Oklahoma Republican’s nomination up for a final vote on the Senate floor as soon as next week.
Mullin’s nomination advanced out of committee by a vote of 8-7. He needed a simple majority of votes to clear the committee.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
U.S. Supreme Court building on March 31, 2026 in Washington, DC. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — As President Donald Trump looked on during an unprecedented visit to the Supreme Court, a majority of justices appeared skeptical of his administration’s bid to end birthright citizenship during arguments in the landmark case Wednesday.
Most of the court’s conservatives and all three liberal members raised doubts about the constitutionality of Trump’s Day 1 executive order that would limit American citizenship at birth only to those born to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.
It would also impose sweeping changes for all new parents and current American citizens going forward, requiring a new system to verify a person’s citizenship beyond a simple birth certificate.
The 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868, says all “persons born or naturalized in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof” are citizens. Congress later codified the same language in federal citizenship law in 1940 and again in 1952.
Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued that the phrase “subject to the jurisdiction” applies only to children whose parents have “allegiance” to the U.S., which he said is determined by being “domiciled” in the country.
The meaning of ‘domiciled’
The 1898 landmark Supreme Court decision in U.S. v Wong Kim Ark, widely considered to be the precedent affirming birthright citizenship, concluded, “The [14th] Amendment, in clear words and in manifest intent, includes the children born, within the territory of the United States, of all other persons, of whatever race or color, domiciled within the United States.”
Sauer said “domiciled” means living in the U.S. lawfully with “intent to stay.”
But many of the court’s conservatives questioned how that definition was derived and whether it aligned with the views of the framers of the 14th Amendment and members of Congress who codified the citizenship clause.
Trump — the first sitting president to attend the high court’s arguments — was seated in the front row of the public gallery alongside White House Counsel David Warrington, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick.
As Sauer parried with the justices, Trump sat attentive and expressionless. His presence in the chamber was not publicly announced or acknowledged by any of the justices on the bench. While Justices Ketanji Brown Jackson, Brett Kavanaugh, and Elena Kagan were most immediately in his line of sight, it was not clear whether any justice on the bench made eye contact with him. Trump also did not engage with anyone seated beside him or in the chamber.
Trump departed the chamber as ACLU Legal Director Cecilia Wang was in the middle of delivering her opening statement, in which she argued that the principle of birthright citizenship was enshrined in the Constitution to prevent government officials from stripping citizenship away.
“Ask any American what our citizenship rule is, and they’ll tell you, everyone born here is a citizen alike,” Wang said. “That rule was enshrined in the 14th Amendment to put it out of the reach of any government official to destroy.”
“If you credit the government’s theory, the citizenship of millions of Americans past, present and future could be called into question,” Wang said.
‘Very quirky arguments’
Sauer got a somewhat frosty reception from at least two key Supreme Court Justices — Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Neil Gorsuch — during his arguments, in which he contended that the longstanding understanding of the 14th Amendment is incorrect.
“The citizenship clause was adopted just after the Civil War to grant citizenship to the newly freed slaves and their children whose allegiance to the United States had been established by generations of domicile. Here, it did not grant citizenship to the children of temporary visitors or illegal aliens who have no such allegiance,” Sauer said.
Roberts noted that the Trump administration is relying on “very quirky” arguments, saying they are using “narrow exceptions” to claim that a much broader class of people should be ineligible for birthright citizenship.
“You know, children of ambassadors, children of enemies during a hostile invasion, children on warships, and then you expand it to the whole class of illegal aliens here in the country — I’m not quite sure how you can get to that big group from such tiny and sort of idiosyncratic examples,” said Roberts.
Gorsuch also remarked that the Trump administration seems to be relying on outdated “Roman law sources” and court precedents that do not work in their favor.
“I’m not sure how much you want to rely on Wong Kim Ark,” Gorsuch remarked about the landmark 1898 case that enshrined birthright citizenship.
Justice Elena Kagan similarly voiced concerns about the sources cited by the Trump administration.
“You’re using some pretty obscure sources to get to this concept,” she said.
‘Illegal immigration’
Justice Samuel Alito initiated a discussion on “illegal immigration” by noting that it was “something that was basically unknown” at the time when the 14th amendment was adopted in the 1860s.
“What we’re dealing with here is something that was basically unknown at the time when the 14th Amendment was adopted, which is illegal immigration,” Alito said. “So how do we deal with that situation when we have a general rule?”
Sauer responded by agreeing with Alito, saying that “illegal immigration did not exist [then],” and “the problem of temporary visitors didn’t exist.”
Sauer pointed to “commentators” from 1881 to 1922 who, he claimed, were “uniformly saying the children of temporary visitors are not included.” He argued that this logic “naturally extends” to those who enter the country illegally.
Justice Kagan challenged Sauer’s argument on immigration, saying his arguments in his brief did not focus on “illegal immigration.”
“Most of your brief is about people who are just temporarily in the country where there was quite clearly an experience of an understanding that there were going to be temporary inhabitants,” Kagan said. “And your whole theory of the case is built on that group.”
“You don’t get to talking about undocumented persons until quite later, and at much lesser … I think it’s like 10 pages to three pages or something like that,” she said.
When asked about how the Trump administration would apply their birthright citizenship executive order, pointed to a guidance document from the Social Security Administration issued last year.
“How does this work? Are you suggesting that when a baby is born, people have to have documents present in the delivery room?” Justice Jackson asked.
“I think that’s directly addressing the SSA guidance that cited in our brief, what SSA says,” Sauer responded.
Justice Jackson appeared skeptical of that response, pressing Sauer about the steps of the process and whether a parent could challenge a final decision.
“We’ll give you a social security number, provided that there’s the system [that] automatically checks the immigration status of the parents — which there are robust databases for — and then it appears no different to the vast majority of birthing parents,” Sauer said.
Birth tourism
In his opening statements, Sauer laid out one of the Trump administration’s key arguments about why birthright citizenship should not be extended to the children of undocumented immigrants, claiming that if it remains “unrestricted” it will continue to be a “pull factor for illegal immigration” and would “reward” immigrants who violate immigration laws.
“It has spawned a sprawling industry of birth tourism as uncounted thousands of foreigners from potentially hostile nations have flocked to give birth in the United States in recent decades, creating a whole generation of American citizens abroad with no meaningful ties to the United States,” Sauer said.
The Trump administration has often claimed that birth tourism — the idea that foreign nationals travel to the U.S. with the sole purpose of having a child here — poses a national security risk and undermines birthright citizenship.
Justice Roberts pressed Sauer to explain how common the problem is, but Sauer was unable to give a clear answer.
“No one knows for sure. There’s a March 9 letter from a number of members of Congress to DHS saying, ‘Do we have any information about this?’ The media reports indicate estimates could be over one million, or 1.5 million from the People’s Republic of China alone. The congressional report that we cite in our brief talks about certain hotspots, like Russian elites coming to Miami through these birth tourism companies,” Sauer said.
Sauer went on to claim that media reports indicate there are 500 “birth tourism companies” in China, prompting Justice Roberts to interject to ask if Sauer agreed that had “no impact on the legal analysis before us.”
“We’re in a new world now as Justice Alito pointed out, to where 8 billion people are one plane ride away from having a child who is a U.S. citizen,” Sauer added later.
In a statement Wednesday morning, ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero addressed Trump’s attendance at the proceedings, saying Trump would “watch the ACLU school him in the meaning of the Constitution and birthright citizenship.”
“Any effort to distract from the gravity and importance of this case will not succeed. The Supreme Court is up to the task of interpreting and defending the Constitution even under the glare of a sitting president a couple dozen feet away from them,” he said.
Wednesday’s arguments concluded after about two hours. A ruling in the case isn’t expected until the end of June.
