TEXAS — On Friday, an online outlet called the Border Report wrote about a sign that popped up on a boat ramp on the Rio Grande in Mission. The signs are small and face the river, warning folks coming up the ramp that it’s a “restricted area” owned by the Department of Defense and that people and vehicles are subject to search. Any materials documenting the area are “prohibited unless specifically authorized by the commander.”
The cryptic sign is one of over two thousand erected in recent months along the southern border in what are called “National Defense Areas,” or NDAs for short. In June, The Sentinel toured the newly-designated NDA in El Paso, where reporters grilled officials from Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the Department of Defense (DOD) about the efficacy of the new program. Agency representatives stressed that the NDAs are designed to be a deterrent to people hoping to cross the border illegally with the help of cartel-affiliated guides. “Foreign terrorist organizations are lying to you,” said Interim El Paso Sector Chief Patrol Agent Walter Slosar. “They profit by spreading lies. They cannot deliver on their promises of entry or legal status.”
Just a few weeks later, the DOD announced that 250 miles of land formerly owned by the International Water and Boundary Commission (IBWC) in Cameron and Hidalgo counties would become part of the NDA system and are legally considered part of Joint Base San Antonio.
Multiple sources reported that local officials feel left out of the process, unable to answer questions to their constituents about whether American citizens could be prosecuted for crossing into NDA territory. By law, the Rio Grande is a publicly navigable waterway open to Texans for recreation. “We have an issue that we haven’t been able to resolve with immigration, and I think that this is kind of a drastic way of addressing it,” Hidalgo County Judge Richard Cortez told the Border Report.