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u.s.-mexico border
'Democratic Freedoms' Under Threat as Migrants Charged for Entering Trump Militarized Border Zone
"As presidential overreaches pile up, they underscore the urgent need for Congress and the courts to reassert their roles as checks on executive authority," said two experts at the Brennan Center for Justice.
Apr 30, 2025
At least 28 migrants who crossed into the U.S. over the southern border could face up to a year in detention and $100,000 in fines after being charged Monday not only with "illegal entry" but also with violating "security regulations"—the result of U.S. President Donald Trump's transformation of the border into a 170-mile-long "National Defense Area."
As Common Dreams reported last month, the White House has pushed to create a "buffer zone" patrolled by U.S. troops along a stretch of the southern border in New Mexico, with soldiers empowered to immediately detain anyone who "trespasses" in the 60-foot-wide area before handing them over to Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
The Washington Post reported that the migrants were apprehended on a route that has been used for years by people entering the U.S., and were accused in court filings of violating "the order issued on April 18, 2025, by the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Huachuca military commander designating the New Mexico National Defense Areas, also known as the Roosevelt Reservation, as both a restricted area and a controlled area under Army Regulation 190-13."
Carlos Ibarra, a court-appointed attorney for the migrants facing charges, told the Post that the government was "piling on" by adding the security violation charge, and said that "if these folks had $100,000, they wouldn't be coming over here."
The arrests came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth made an appearance at the border last week, saying in a video posted on the Pentagon's social media accounts, "This may as well be a military base."
"Any illegal attempting to enter that zone is entering a military base," he said. "You add up the charges of what you can be charged with, misdemeanors and felonies, you could be looking up to 10 years in prison when prosecuted."
Ordinarily people who are charged for crossing the border without authorization have faced a potential six-month jail term and up to $5,000 in fines.
The area was turned into a de facto military base when Trump signed an executive order earlier this month giving the Pentagon jurisdiction over the Roosevelt Reservation, saying in a memo that the southern border "is under attack from a variety of threats" and requires a more direct security role for the U.S. military.
According to the Migration Policy Institute, apprehensions of migrants by U.S. Border Patrol sank to just 7,000 in March, the fewest in at least 25 years.
The memo creating a military installation at the border was designed to give federal troops a "legitimate military reason" to apprehend, search, and detain troops without violating the Posse Comitatus Act and without Trump having to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, the Brennan Center for Justice explained in a blog post on Monday.
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits federal armed forces from engaging in civilian law enforcement without the approval of Congress. The Insurrection Act provides an exception to that law, as does a loophole in the Posse Comitatus Act called the "military purpose doctrine." Trump's advisers have so far recommended against invoking the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to enforce the law in certain situations.
Trump's memo allowing the military to "act as a de facto border police force," wrote Elizabeth Goitein and Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center, "could have alarming implications for democratic freedoms."
"It continues a pattern of the president stretching his emergency powers past their limits to usurp the role of Congress and bypass legal rights," they wrote. "He has misused a law meant to address economic emergencies to set tariffs on every country in the world. He declared a fake 'energy emergency' to promote fossil fuel production. And he dusted off a centuries-old wartime authority to deport Venezuelan immigrants, without due process, to a Salvadoran prison notorious for human rights violations."
"As presidential overreaches pile up, they underscore the urgent need for Congress and the courts to reassert their roles as checks on executive authority," wrote Goitein and Nunn.
Along with concerns about the legality of Trump's move, Goitein and Nunn noted that troops "are trained to fight and destroy an enemy; they're generally not trained for domestic law enforcement." Empowering them to engage with civilians now could make it easier for the administration to "justify uses of the military in the U.S. interior in the future."
"Asking them to do law enforcement's job creates risks to migrants, U.S. citizens who may inadvertently trespass on federal lands at the border, and the soldiers themselves," they wrote.
Rebecca Sheff, senior staff attorney at the ACLU of New Mexico, wrote last week that Trump's creation of a military installation on public border land "represents a dangerous erosion of the constitutional principle that the military should not be policing civilians."
"By authorizing service members to detain, search, and conduct 'crowd control,' these new authorities undermine our state's values of dignity, respect, and community," said Sheff. "We don't want militarized zones where border residents—including U.S. citizens—face potential prosecution simply for being in the wrong place. This isn't how we want to be in relation with our neighbors. This dangerous expansion of military authorities threatens both our civil liberties and the cultural fabric that makes our borderlands unique."
Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU National Security Project, also described potential impacts on U.S. citizens who live in border areas.
In addition to endangering migrants who cross the border, Shamsi wrote, Trump's actions "are worsening the conditions under which civilian border communities live."
"Our southern border is home to approximately 19 million people, in addition to the regular business and trade commuters who come across the border every day," wrote Shamsi. "The new policy has serious implications for border residents living under this expanded militarized zone, which includes cities like San Diego, California; Nogales, Arizona; El Paso, Texas and other heavily populated, thriving communities. People in these areas could now face federal prosecution for trespassing if they unintentionally walk or drive onto a designated 'national defense area.'"
Shamsi warned that while Trump has not yet invoked the Insurrection Act, "his administration continues to invest in the theater of war," and called on Congress "to insist on oversight for these expanded actions... and to call for safeguards and transparency to protect border residents from escalating military control over their daily lives."
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Trump Scheme Would Turn US Border Into Sprawling Military Base as Loophole to Detain Migrants
One journalist warned the proposal would create vast "buffer zone" in which "no normal U.S. laws apply."
Mar 20, 2025
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."
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Rights Groups Sue Over Trump's 'Flagrantly Illegal' Shutdown of Asylum at Border
"The immigration laws do not give the president autocratic power to override Congress and brazenly violate U.S. treaty obligations related to the protection of refugees," said one advocate.
Feb 03, 2025
Accusing U.S. President Donald Trump of using "racist conspiracy theories" and lies about refugees to block people from exercising their right to seek asylum in the United States, several advocacy groups filed a federal lawsuit on Monday to block the Republican president's recent proclamation aimed at shutting down the asylum process at the southern border.
Disregarding the fact that the right to seek asylum has been part of U.S. law for more than four decades, the president quickly said after taking office last month that he was suspending the asylum process at the U.S.-Mexico border until the "invasion at the southern border has ceased."
The move left "no avenue open for people to seek asylum, even if they present themselves at a port of entry," said the groups, including the Texas Civil Rights Project, the National Immigrant Justice Center, and the ACLU.
Migrants who had traveled across Central America and Mexico in hopes of seeking asylum found soon after Trump's inauguration that their appointments with U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been canceled, leading to scenes of desperation at the border.
"This is the latest flagrantly illegal attempt by the executive branch to end humanitarian protection at the U.S.-Mexico border," said Richard Caldarone, senior litigation attorney at the National Immigrant Justice Center. "The immigration laws do not give the president autocratic power to override Congress and brazenly violate U.S. treaty obligations related to the protection of refugees. This latest attempt to do so will make thousands of people vulnerable to persecution, torture, and death, and we will not stop fighting until all those who require protection have the opportunity guaranteed by U.S. law to seek asylum in this country."
"Just as he did in his first term, the president is attempting to rewrite our laws by executive fiat and impose an illegal policy of mass expulsions."
Melissa Crow, director of litigation at the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies, warned that Trump cannot use the "lie" of an invasion by "families, children, and adults seeking safety" at the border to circumvent U.S. laws.
"Just as he did in his first term, the president is attempting to rewrite our laws by executive fiat and impose an illegal policy of mass expulsions," said Crow.
The asylum proclamation is just one of the anti-immigration actions Trump has taken in his first weeks in office. He declared an end to birthright citizenship—and was quickly challenged in court by rights groups and Democratic state attorneys general, with a judge ruling that the order was "blatantly unconstitutional"—and has directed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to round up thousands of undocumented immigrants, roughly half of whom didn't have a criminal record.
"Once again, the Trump administration wants to eliminate the ability of families to seek safety in our country in the form of asylum, a legal pathway," said Jennifer Babaie, director of advocacy and legal services of Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center. "Regardless of any person's individual beliefs on immigration, any government attempt to blatantly violate our laws is a serious issue impacting all communities across the country. Spreading falsehoods about an 'invasion' at our border only fuels fear, aiming to dismantle the entire asylum process and weaponize our immigration laws."
Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, said the suspension of asylum was "extreme, unjust, and a disservice to families seeking safety at our southern border."
"Denying migrants and displaced individuals from the opportunity to find safety undermines our nation's values and creates additional strain on our already burdened border communities," said Garza. "Our lawsuit underscores the unlawful nature of this policy and emphasizes the need to protect asylum seekers' rights. The U.S. should lead by example in implementing fair immigration practices and treating the most vulnerable with dignity."
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