Trump administration expands military’s role at the border to the southern tip of Texas

By MORGAN LEE, Associated Press

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The Department of Defense is expanding a militarized zone along the southern U.S. border where troops are authorized to detain people who enter for possible federal prosecution on charges of trespassing in a national defense area.

The Air Force on Monday announced the annexation of a serpentine 250-mile stretch of the border in Texas amid a buildup of military forces under President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency at the border.

The newly designated national defense area along the Rio Grande spans two Texas counties and runs alongside cities, including Brownsville and McAllen. It will be treated as an extension of Joint Base San Antonio. The Air Force said it’s prepared to install warning signs immediately against entry to the area.

The military strategy was pioneered in April along a 170-mile stretch of the border in New Mexico and expanded to a swath of western Texas in May. Hunters, hikers and humanitarian aid groups fear that they will no longer have access.

In the newest national defense area, military responsibilities include “enhanced detection and monitoring” and “temporarily detaining trespassers until they are transferred to the appropriate law enforcement authorities,” the Air Force said in a news release.

At least three people have been directly detained by troops in New Mexico for processing by Border Patrol. More than 1,400 immigrants have been charged with incursions into the national defense areas, a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to 18 months in prison.

Court challenges to the charges have met with mixed results.

The militarized border zone is a counterpoint to the deployment of roughly 4,000 National Guard troops and 700 Marines to Los Angeles following protests over Trump’s stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.

The troop deployments are testing the limits of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.

Arrests at the border for illegal entry have decreased dramatically this year.