President Donald Trump late Friday signed a memorandum directing several agencies to start militarizing a stretch of the southern border, an escalation of the administration’s use of the U.S. military amid its immigration crackdown.
The move, which The Washington Post first reported last month, could put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, a possible violation of federal law.
The memo directs the Interior Department to allow the Defense Department to have jurisdiction over portions of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, excluding any Native American reservations.
By creating a military buffer zone that stretches across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, it means any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, therefore allowing active-duty troops to hold them until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive.
National and military experts have raised concerns that giving control over the land to the military could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.
The Friday memo instructs its “phased” implementation within 45 days, and says it could be expanded over time.The memo is directed at the secretaries of the departments of Defense, Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security.
“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,” according to the memo.
Friday’s announcement comes ahead of a report that is due to Trump by April 20 from the secretaries of Defense and Homeland Security with recommendations on whether or not to use the Insurrection Act of 1807 to aid in mass deportations.
The memo states: “At any time, the Secretary of Defense may extend activities under this memorandum to additional Federal lands along the southern border in coordination with the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Assistant to the President and Homeland Security Advisor, and other executive departments and agencies as appropriate.”
The memo also says that it’s part of an executive order Trump earlier this year signed, “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States.”
That executive order is one of five that lay out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown.
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