Trump Scheme Would Turn US Border Into Sprawling Military Base as Loophole to Detain Migrants

The Trump administration is considering plans to create a "buffer zone" controlled by the Pentagon along a large portion of the southern border—a move that would enable U.S. troops to immediately detain anyone who crossed the border into the militarized area, treating them as trespassers on a military base.

As The Washington Post reported, the White House has been evaluating the plan for several weeks as it pushes a crackdown on immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border, where more than 10,000 service members are now involved in border security.

Under the proposal, the Pentagon would assume control of a 60-foot-deep strip of the border in New Mexico, lying within the Roosevelt Reservation, which President Theodore Roosevelt set aside for border security in 1907. The land is typically under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Interior Department.

The militarized buffer zone could eventually stretch all the way across Arizona to California, according to the Post.

Journalist Harris Meyer said the satellite military base would serve as "an internal Gitmo," referring to the military detention camp, "where no normal U.S. laws apply."

If migrants—or U.S. civilians—were apprehended at the base, service members would be able to detain them indefinitely until law enforcement or immigration officials arrived.

The Trump administration has so far enlisted Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to detain undocumented immigrants at the border, avoiding violations of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits active-duty service members from participating in law enforcement work.

The plan, said Adam Isacson of the Washington Office on Latin America, "would be the first [U.S. military] mission that would put soldiers out front, in direct contact with civilians/migrants, on U.S. soil."