EL PASO, Texas — Soldiers currently deployed to the U.S. southern border have begun asking their congressional representatives if they’re allowed to redeploy home yet following a Pentagon announcement of troop reductions in Iraq and Afghanistan, sources confirmed today.

“We’ve been here waiting on that migrant caravan since the congressional election in 2018,” said Capt. Pat Thompson, a company commander. “I feel like if they were going to show up, they would’ve done it by now.”

“Do you see any caravan?” he asked, gesturing at the empty desert.

Skeptics have long believed the initial deployment of troops to the southern border was a political maneuver by President Donald Trump to drum up national security concerns ahead of a midterm election. But as years have passed, White House officials insist that the refusal to withdraw troops is evidence that wasting soldiers’ time and keeping them away from their families is a normal function of government no matter who is sitting in the Oval Office.