Troops begin detaining immigrants in national defense zone at border in
escalation of military role
[June 12, 2025]
By MORGAN LEE
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — U.S. troops have begun directly detaining
immigrants accused of trespassing on a recently designated national
defense zone along the southern U.S. border, in an escalation of the
military's enforcement role, authorities said Wednesday
U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Chad Campbell described in detail the first
detentions by troops last week of three immigrants accused of
trespassing in a national defense area near Santa Teresa, New Mexico.
Those migrants were quickly turned over to U.S. Customs and Border
Protection and are now among more than 1,400 migrants to have been
charged with illegally entering militarized areas along that border,
under a new border enforcement strategy from President Donald Trump's
administration.
Troops are prohibited from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S.
soil under the Posse Comitatus Act. But an exception known as the
military purpose doctrine allows it in some instances.
Authorities “noticed three individuals crossing the protective barrier
into the United States,” Campbell said. “A Department of Defense
response went to interdict those three individuals, told them to sit
down. ... In a matter of three minutes, border patrol agents came in to
apprehend. So that three minutes is that temporary detention” by the
military.
Trump has designated two national military defense areas along the
southern U.S. border for New Mexico and a 60-mile (97-kilometer) stretch
of western Texas, from El Paso to Fort Hancock, while transferring much
of the land from the Interior Department to oversight by the Department
of Defense for three years.
The Trump administration plans eventually to add more militarized zones
along the border, a military spokesman said Wednesday at a news
conference in El Paso.
“We have been very clear that there will be additional National Defense
Areas across the southern border,” said Geoffrey Carmichael, a
spokesperson for an enforcement task force at the southern border. “I
won’t speculate to where those are going to be.”
Proponents of the militarized zones, including federal prosecutors, say
the approach augments traditional efforts by Customs and Border
Protection and other law enforcement agencies to secure the border.
“These partnerships and consequences exist so that we can promote the
most humane border environment we’ve ever had,” El Paso sector Border
Patrol Chief Agent Walter Slosar said. “We are dissuading people from
entering the smuggling cycle ... to make sure that smugglers cannot take
advantage of individuals who are trying to come into the United States.”
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Army soldiers look at the border wall next to a surveillance vehicle
in Sunland Park, N.M., Feb. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Andres Leighton,
File)
Defense attorneys — and judges in some instances — are pushing back
against the novel application of national security charges against
immigrants who enter through those militarized zones — and carry a
potential sentence of 18 months in prison on top of a possible six-month
sentence for illegal entry.
A judge in New Mexico has dismissed more than 100 national security
charges against immigrants, finding little evidence that immigrants knew
about the national defense areas. Those migrants still confronted
charges of illegal entry to the U.S.
In Texas, a Peruvian woman who crossed the U.S. border illegally was
acquitted of unauthorized access to a newly designated militarized zone
in the first trial under the Trump administration’s efforts.
U.S. Attorney Justin Simmons, who oversees western Texas, vowed to press
forward with more military trespassing charges.
“We’re gonna keep going forward on these NDA charges,” Simmons said. “We
are gonna still bring them, we may win on them, we may not. ... At the
end of the day, you are not going to be allowed to stay in this country
if you enter this country illegally.”
Greater military engagement at the border takes place at the same time
dozens of mayors from across the Los Angeles region banded together
Wednesday to demand that the Trump administration stop the stepped-up
immigration raids that have spread fear across their cities and sparked
protests across the U.S.
Trump has authorized the deployment of an additional 2,000 National
Guard members to respond to immigration protests in LA. That directive
brings the total number of Guard put on federal orders for the protests
to more than 4,100. The Pentagon had already deployed about 700 Marines
to the protests to the city.
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