When Trump first announced that he was going to militarize the Mexican border, plenty of thoughts went through people’s minds.

Even if you already knew that Trump wasn’t the first President to send National Guard troops to the border, you probably thought that there would be something different about Trump’s actions. However, there doesn’t seem to be anything truly groundbreaking in the President’s move.

The role the Guardsmen will be playing isn’t much different from the last two deployments. Their mission will mostly be scouting out the area with drones and building and repairing infrastructure.

Many other populist movements across the Western world have used or advocated the use of border militarization as a tool to suppress migration into their country.

For instance, Hungary and Serbia have both stationed troops along their borders to discourage migrants from moving through their territory. The AfD party in Germany has called for militarizing Germany’s Southern border to stop migrants from entering into German lands – and using live fire to stop anyone from actually getting through.

Even though this may seem scary, here in America we will be doing no such thing. Our laws prevent any live fire from being used on migrants, and the analysis shows that this is an appeasement of Trump’s base more than anything else.

Analysts have said that this is a mostly political move as immigrants crossing the border have been at a record low.**

Despite backing down on several hardline policies in the past, Donald Trump is now doubling down. Recent trade spats with the Chinese, the suggestion of a retreat from Syria, and the militarization of the border to ‘secure the border’ are all promises that Trump made on the campaign trail.*

More evidence pointing towards it being a political move is that the National Guard cannot legally detain immigrants under U.S. law. This means that it will most likely not really effect immigrants directly.

The planned number of deployed troops to the border is approximately 4000 Guardsmen. This number is more than President Obama sent to the border in 2012 but less than Bush sent in 2006.

Guardsmen who are being deployed will be notified along with their employer so that they have time to prepare to leave for the Mexican border. They will only be armed when necessary and are not authorized to harass or fire upon people crossing the border. However, they will be assisting the Department of Homeland Security with intelligence and notifying them of where they locate the most crossings.

Generally, border militarization is scary and unknown. However, people crossing the border won’t be harmed by American troops. Even though we have yet to figure out if those troops will be doing more than what was publicly stated, we can assume that nothing will really happen because of this move, except for fence repairs and drone scouting in the desert.

This is a symbolic move with political meaning rather than actual action on immigration. As usual with the Trump Administration, the changes coming down the line will not be as big as they may seem.

*Trump promised to secure the border, not specifically militarize it.

**Data taken from NPR.