Another stretch of federal land along the border has been transferred to the U.S. military, this time in Texas, expanding the territory in which troops can be used to apprehend migrants and the government can pursue trespassing charges.
U.S. Northern Command announced on Thursday that the new area will be an extension of Fort Bliss in El Paso. It follows the military taking control of the Roosevelt Reservation, a narrow stretch of land in New Mexico that has been deemed part of Fort Huachuca. Troops in Texas can now also detain trespassers, conduct searches, use crowd control measures and install barriers and signs.
The latest transfer of public border land is part of President Donald Trump’s expanding and unprecedented national crackdown on immigration and deepens the military’s role in the effort, far beyond past deployments to aid border security.
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“This is the second area in which Joint Task Force-Southern Border service members who are already detecting and monitoring through stationary positions and mobile patrols nearby can now temporarily detain trespassers until they are transferred to an appropriate law enforcement entity,” Gen. Gregory Guillot, the head of U.S. Northern Command, said in a brief news release.
The announcement of a second area follows in-depth Military.com reporting on the Roosevelt Reservation transfer, which included human rights activists as well as legal and defense policy experts raising alarm about transferring federal land to the military to avoid violating the Posse Comitatus Act, a law that bars service members from performing certain law enforcement activities.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has been making arrests for those who trespass onto the defense-owned land.
A defense official told Military.com that the new area stretches a non-contigious 63 miles between El Paso and the nearby census designated place of Fort Hancock, Texas. The official added the preponderance of the forces would be from a Stryker brigade that was deployed to the area in March.
Additional details about the new defense area were not immediately available.
Military.com reported this week that migrants who have crossed into the national defense area in New Mexico have not only been charged with a misdemeanor for unlawful entry but also with a misdemeanor for trespassing onto military property, which, if convicted, could mean a year in prison and a hefty $100,000 fine.
Migrants charged for crossing into the New Mexico defense area were identified by troops with aircraft that were working with CBP agents, the defense official told Military.com.
“Joint Task Force-Southern Border air assets supporting U.S. Customs and Border Protection, as well as transporting a partnered U.S. Border Patrol agent, surveilled trespassers from the sky,” the official said. “Communication occurred between the agent on board the aircraft and U.S. Border Patrol agents on [the] ground, who executed the final apprehension of the alleged trespassers.”
Military.com reported that 152 signs had been placed throughout the stretch of New Mexico land as of the middle of this week. It is not clear whether signs warning about trespassing into the area had already been placed across the new Texas military zone.
The military has played an increasing role in Trump’s immigration crackdown since January, with thousands of troops deployed to the southern border, troops flying deportation flights to other countries and service members managing detained migrants at the Guantanamo Navy base in Cuba.
Related: Military Zone Along Border Means New — Potentially Harsher — Penalties for Newly Detained Migrants
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