Trump declares one-third of the Southern U.S. Border a Military Base
A shaky legal argument allows Federal Troops to arrest, search, and detain migrants— a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act
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The Roosevelt Reservation is a 60-foot-wide federal buffer zone that stretches along the U.S. border from New Mexico to California, except where it encounters tribal or privately owned land.
In March, U.S.President Donald Trump ordered the region turned over to the Department of Defense as preparation for a workaround of the Posse Comitatus Act. Military forces in the United States are strictly prevented by law to perform the duties of civilian law enforcement — unless specifically granted that temporary power in times of emergency.
On Easter Sunday, April 20, Trump designated the Roosevelt Reservation a “National Defense Area”, granting broad powers to soldiers deployed there to detain, search, and otherwise police anyone entering the region.
The legal argument put forth by the Trump team, which has already been challenged by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is that the region is effectively now a military base, and anyone trespassing onto the federal property can be treated like any other trespasser on a U.S. army base.
In public statements immediately after the announcement, the ACLU called the approach “akin to Texas’s Operation Lone Star on steroids”, referring to National Guard deployments and razor-wire barricades along the Texas-Mexico border currently being spearheaded by Texas Governor Greg Abbot.
The ACLU further described the designation as “a dangerous erosion of constitutional principle.”
On April 25, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth visited the military task force assigned to the region. The White House has announced a deployment of army units, marines, and a “general support aviation brigade.”
“This is Department of Defense property,” Hegseth said, during the visit. “Any illegal [attempt] to enter that zone is entering a military base . You will be detained. You will be interdicted by U.S. troops.”
The U.S.-Mexico border is already one of the deadliest in the world, and some experts have suggested that the new militarization will likely push migrants into the dangerous Sonoran Desert region — where more than 4,000 migrants have been confirmed dead.
Researchers believe official data under-reports the true number of deaths as many of those who go missing are never reported to authorities, and others die in remote areas that are infrequently patrolled.
Loopholes allowing presidents to work around the Posse Comitatus Act have occurred before, most recently in 2020 when Trump deployed National Guard to oppress peaceful Black Lives Matter protests in Washington D.C.
Trump is pushing executive power to its limits in regard to border security and domestic migration enforcement. He has declared a “state of emergency”, using the obscure 1798 Alien Enemies Act — claiming without evidence that Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua is “invading” the U.S.
Trump argues that this “invasion” grants him broad wartime powers and the ability to deport and detain foreign nationals in violation of Constitutional rights granted to all persons on U.S. soil.
This further militarization of the southern border is another step in the dangerous direction of further expanding presidential powers.
