WESLACO – National Guard troops at the border will be supporting Border Patrol, but not by patrolling the riverbanks.

Border Patrol says they will be monitoring cameras, the airwaves and patrolling the skies.

Last week, the task was to have soldiers get familiarized with the reason that they’re here and what they will be doing.

Under Operation Guardian Support, 450 soldiers were deployed to the Rio Grande Valley region, said Assistant Chief Alfredo Lozano.

He says leadership arrived first, and is getting briefed on the weeks ahead.

It may take three weeks to get the soldiers to where they need to be.

"Next is what we call on the job training," says Lozano. "And that's going to revolve around several different categories, support categories."

Those support categories include air support, camera surveillance, and radio communications.

For air support, soldiers will operate aircraft in the sky and monitor the ground in communication with border patrol.

In camera surveillance, soldiers will monitor cameras on the ground from indoor stations.

For radio communications, soldiers will monitor and relay radio traffic.

Lozano says the help with these roles will free up agents.

"These national guardsmen will essentially come in to conduct border patrol operations that will then have an agent go out to the field to conduct front line ops," he says.

Lozano says you won't see these soldiers monitoring the riverbanks, or even carrying rifles. 

But everything is subject to change. Lozano says the positions haven't evolved beyond the support role "just yet".