WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Friday, the Trump administration released a memo regarding the “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border,” which included the transfer of a narrow federally-owned strip of land along the border from Las Cruces to San Diego from the Department of the Interior into the hands of the Department of Defense (DOD). “Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” the president’s memo reads. “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.”
At a press conference on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced that the order could soon expand. “In the coming weeks, this administration will add more than 90 miles in the state of Texas,” she explained. “This national defense area will enhance the ability to detect, interdict and prosecute illegal aliens, criminal gangs and terrorists who were able to invade our country without consequence for the past four years.”
The 60-foot-wide strip of land referred to in the memo is called the “Roosevelt Reservation.” It was originally acquired by the government under Theodore Roosevelt’s administration as “a protection against the smuggling of goods.”
The Trump administration has run a version of this play before — in 2019, the government put the Roosevelt Reservation under DOD control to expedite the process of constructing a border wall. Friday’s proclamation will mark the first time that the DOD will take over the strip in the interest of law enforcement.
Some experts are alarmed by the move, which appears to be an effort to skirt the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from enforcing domestic law. Over the past few months, nearly 10,000 troops have been deployed to the Southwest border — while dozens of National Guardsmen have been deputized for law enforcement, the vast majority of DOD personnel on the ground in the region are instead involved in detection and surveillance.
If the plan outlined in the memo sticks, folks who cross the border illegally in California, Arizona and New Mexico could be charged with trespassing on federal property in addition to the typical misdemeanor charge for crossing outside a port of entry. “It’s a quantum leap, because the original designation of the land did not come along with militarizing the zone and sort of bootstrapping a way for soldiers to arrest migrants or to enforce drug trafficking laws at the border,” Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program, told Military.com in an interview.
At press time, there were few details available about the expansion of the federal “national defense area” into the state of Texas. Most of the state’s border with Mexico is privately owned — with the exception of Big Bend National Park, which protects 118 miles of wilderness along the Rio Grande.
Representatives for Big Bend National Park declined to comment on whether the press secretary’s “over 90 miles in Texas” overlapped with the park. A spokesperson for the Office of the Secretary of Defense said that the DOD takeover of land in Texas was “pre-decisional” and that the details were still in flux.