Trump authorizes military to take control of lands at U.S.-Mexico border

President Donald Trump sent a memorandum to four federal department heads yesterday with instructions to allow the military to take control of federal lands along the U.S.-Mexico border. The move is part of a broader effort to crack down on undocumented immigration.

“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” a presidential memorandum posted Friday night claims. “The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past.”

The memo was sent to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Agricultural Secretary Brooke Rollins. It specifically instructs occupying the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide strip of land owned by the federal government that stretches through three of the four border states. Federal Indian Reservations are exempt.

It allows soldiers to arrest and detain migrants, a role that has legally been the purview of law enforcement, not the military. Such military activities include “border-barrier construction and emplacement of detection and monitoring equipment,” the memo states. Migrants that are detained would be put into “holding” for trespassing onto a military property, CNN reported. They would later be transferred into the hands of the Department of Homeland Security and from there be deported.

The Guardian reported that “The DHS’s announcement was widely seen as a workaround of the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that bars U.S. military troops from participating in most civilian law enforcement actions.” Only two days into his second term, Trump declared immigration a national emergency. There are already about 10,000 U.S. troops spread out across the border, according to The Independent, which represents “a vast increase from the 2,500 deployed there under the Biden administration.”