UPDATE: The AP reports: “The Defense Department said Thursday that it has designated a second stretch on the U.S. border with Mexico as a military zone to enforce immigration laws. The newest area is in Texas and is attached to the Fort Bliss Army base in El Paso.” The experiment in militarizing immigration control is expanding and doubling down. The newly designated military zone is ‘legally’ attached to Fort Bliss, this time.
The Trump Regime is attempting to establish a 170-square-mile National Defense Area along the U.S.-Mexico border through President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum (NSPM-4). Oddly, the new Area is designated as a military base, though it is merely 60 feet wide, stretches hundreds of miles along the international border, and is not contiguous with any other military bases – including Ft. Huachuca, of which the Trump Regime is pretending the new area is a part. This action represents a major power grab and militarization of border enforcement. Trump seeks to leverage claimed emergency powers to bypass congressional oversight, expand the military’s domestic law enforcement role, and weaken regulatory safeguards, raising significant legal, humanitarian, constitutional, and ecological concerns.
If you think that these actions are only of concern for immigrants, think again. This latest attempt to militarize the border, if successful, is a broader model for bypassing Posse Comitatus limits on use of the military for domestic law enforcement, and a means of violating the rights of citizens using our own military forces. This attack on our constitutional order is happening right here and right now in Arizona and next door in New Mexico, largely ignored by the mainstream media.
Transfer of Federal Lands to Military Control
NSPM-4 initiates the transfer of the Roosevelt Reservation-a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land managed by the Interior, Agriculture, and Homeland Security departments-to the Department of Defense (DOD). Established in 1907 to combat smuggling, this narrow stip of land spans from New Mexico to California and now enables military activities such as border-barrier construction and surveillance deployment, and the power to enforce access control by military personnel. The phased transfer begins with a section east of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, but grants the defense secretary authority to expand it indefinitely along the border.
This maneuver circumvents the Engle Act (43 U.S.C. §§ 155–158), which requires congressional approval for DOD projects exceeding 5,000 acres. By declaring a national emergency, Trump sidestepped this requirement, exploiting the National Emergencies Act’s broad executive powers. Constitutional challenges arise under the Property Clause and Enclave Clause, which reserve federal land management and military installation authority exclusively for Congress. The unilateral transfer reflects an ongoing pattern of executive overreach by the Trump Regime, undermining legislative and judicial checks on Presidential powers.
Erosion of Posse Comitatus Act Protections
The Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C. § 1385), which prohibits federal military personnel from engaging in domestic law enforcement, is effectively bypassed by reclassifying the Roosevelt Reservation border zone as a military installation. NSPM-4 invokes statutes like 10 U.S.C. § 2672 and 18 U.S.C. § 1382 to authorize arrests, detentions, and searches by military personnel. Approximately 10,000 active-duty troops stationed at the border now operate under rules akin to those governing traditional military bases, including apprehending trespassers and transferring them to civilian authorities.
A New Immigration Detention-Deportation-Incarceration Regime?
This reclassification criminalizes unauthorized entry into the National Defense Area under § 1382, punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment. On April 29, 2025, the Department of Justice initiated its first prosecutions of 28 migrants charged with both illegal border crossing and entering the restricted military zone in New Mexico. While military spokespersons claim troops have not yet made direct apprehensions, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth emphasized that the zone is treated as a “military base,” with intercepted individuals handed to Border Patrol.
The Trump Regime may find yet more useful ways to abuse this legal fiction against immigrants and citizens alike. If approaching the border entails a necessary trespass on a military zone, what is to stop them from selectively arresting protestors for such trespasses to quash First Amendment rights along the border?
The first arrests of immigrants based on this legal fiction have already occurred. “Any illegal attempting to enter that zone is entering a military base, ” Defense Secretary Hegseth said in video posted on social media. “You will be interdicted by U.S. troops and Border Patrol working together.” Court documents show migrants detained in the new military zone were charged with both crossing the U.S.-Mexico border illegally (a civil violation) and entering a restricted military area (a criminal violation).
I suspect that the Trump Regime will soon further abuse these newly claimed powers and invoke the unwise Laken Riley Act’s provision allowing indefinite detention of immigrants charged with any crime. The Trump Regime may even attempt to deport some of those immigrants arrested for trespassing on the new military border zone to Bukele’s concentration camps in El Salvador as a propaganda coup and a chilling deterrent to immigrants seeking to cross the southern border.
This is clearly the camel’s nose under the tent in expanding the role of the military in direct border enforcement and possibly domestic policing in similar areas if this precedent were to stand unchallenged.
Securing New Funding for Border Wall Construction
The designation of the border as a military installation also strengthens the administration’s ability to fund barriers under 10 U.S.C. § 2808, which permits military construction during national emergencies. In 2019, courts blocked similar efforts, ruling border walls did not qualify as military projects. However, by redefining the border as DOD-controlled land, the administration now argues construction directly supports military installations-a claim more likely to withstand legal scrutiny.
Congressional caps on domestic military construction ($100 million) are circumvented by broadening the definition of “military installation” to include any DOD-controlled land. This reinterpretation creates a pathway to redirect funds previously restricted for overseas projects.
Weakening Environmental Safeguards
The National Defense Area’s creation coincides with systematic rollbacks of environmental regulations:
- National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA): The Council on Environmental Quality rescinded requirements for environmental impact statements, allowing border wall construction and land transfers to proceed without reviews.
- Endangered Species Act (ESA): A proposed rule narrows the definition of “harm” to exclude indirect impacts on endangered species, undermining protections for 23 federally listed species along the border, including the jaguar and Mexican gray wolf.
These changes eliminate legal tools previously used by environmental groups to challenge border militarization. For example, lawsuits citing habitat destruction under ESA § 9 (“take” prohibitions) are less viable under the revised definitions.
Congressional and Judicial Pushback?
Congress retains constitutional authority under the Property and Enclave Clauses to regulate federal lands and military installations. The House and Senate Armed Services Committees could block the land transfer through the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) or terminate the national emergency. However, the utter prostration of the MAGA majority to Trump’s Regime will likely prevent Congress from enforcing its primacy.
Courts may scrutinize the administration’s interpretation of statutes like § 2808 and § 2672. Previous rulings against border wall funding (e.g., Sierra Club v. Trump) suggest potential challenges, though the military installation designation complicates legal arguments. Environmental groups face reduced standing under revised NEPA and ESA rules, cannily limiting their ability to contest such projects.
States like Arizona and New Mexico could challenge land seizures under federalism principles, but precedent favors federal supremacy in border security, minimizing state-led litigation prospects. It remains to be seen whether Arizona’s Attorney General, Kris Mayes, will seek to file suit challenging the Regime’s latest power grab. Given her strong track record of challenging the Trump Regime in court, it seems a possibility, if the public strongly supports her.
Conclusion
The creation of the National Defense Area at the southern border signifies a dangerous paradigm shift in U.S. border policy, prioritizing militarization over legal and environmental safeguards. By leveraging emergency powers, redefining statutory terms, and dismantling regulatory frameworks, the administration has consolidated unprecedented military authority domestically. While congressional and judicial checks remain theoretically possible, their efficacy depends on political will and procedural agility too often absent in the Courts and Congress, both dominated by Trump-aligned MAGA majorities. The long-term implications for our constitutional balance, migrants’ rights, and ecological preservation demand rigorous scrutiny and awareness by the public as this troubling and radical policy unfolds.
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“Becoming” hostile to science?
That ship has already sailed.
And smart people leaving the U.S. will never be considered to be a security risk.
The US has a long history of hating smart people.
This is terrifying and terrifyingly stupid.
What MAGAts don’t realize is immigration restrictions being put in place by the convicted rapist and felon, who was Jeffrey Epstein’s BFF for ten years and brags about peeping on naked teenage girls and assaulting women, can work on both sides of that stupid, useless wall.
Right now other countries are offering our scientists and techies jobs and fat salaries to move to places like Paris and lots of them are taking the offer. The USA is becoming hostile to science.
Counting down to the day when smart people leaving the USA is considered a security problem and we shut down both sides of the border and forbid people from leaving.
I mean, be a shame if anything happened to your family, Poindexter.
I actually expected it to happen during the convicted rapist and friend of pedophile’s first term and if you don’t think it’s coming you are not paying attention.
The Third Reich experienced a “brain drain” with some of their best scientists emigrating here and England. But don’t expect this administration to remember Santaya’s warning about history.
As far as the wanna-be “Fourth Reich” goes, once they start forbidding people from leaving they’ll rip another page from the Nazi pre-war playbook and extort emigrants for all they’re worth before allowing they to leave.