Pentagon sending 5,200 troops to border week before midterms

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon says it is sending 5,200 troops to the Southwest border. It's an extraordinary military operation ordered up just a week before midterm elections in which President Donald Trump has put a sharp focus on Central American migrants moving north in slow-moving caravans that are still hundreds of miles from the U.S.

The number of troops being deployed is more than double the 2,000 who are in Syria fighting the Islamic State group.

Trump is eager to keep voters focused on illegal immigration in the lead-up to the Nov. 6 vote.

Any migrants who complete the long trek to the southern U.S. border already face major physical and bureaucratic hurdles to being allowed into the United States.