On Thursday, President Trump permitted the military to take command of public areas near the southern border with Mexico, multiple media sources said.
According to Trump, many different threats are targeting the US’s southern border. Since the situation has become more complicated, our military must now play a bigger part in defending the southern border than in the past.
This memo is based on Trump’s action in January when he declared an emergency at the US southern border. The declaration told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to report on the situation at the US southern border and what needs to be done to protect it in full.
According to Trump’s order, the Pentagon can take care of security matters at federal lands, including on and around the Roosevelt Reservation on the borders of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Nevertheless, construction and installing security equipment is allowed on federal lands recognized as Native American reservations whenever needed by the military.
It also includes measures for transferring and accepting jurisdiction over Federal lands according to the law, allowing military activities to happen on a military installation managed by the Department of Defense.
It allows Hegseth to identify the military actions necessary to accomplish the task assigned by Trump in his executive order on the 20th of January.
In completing the goals mentioned in the presidential memo, “members of the Armed Forces shall use force according to the instructions laid out by” Hegseth
In this memo, Trump tells Hegseth, Noem, Interior Secretary Burgum, and Agriculture Secretary Rollins to first enforce the memo only on the places listed by the Defense secretary.
After 45 days, Hegseth should evaluate the progress of the mission, and can at any point extend activities to extra areas along the southern border with Noem, Stephen Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security adviser, “and other executive departments and agencies.”
The Department of Defense sent another 1,500 people after Trump’s emergency announcement on Inauguration Day and the 2,500 troops stationed in the Biden term on the border. After that, the 10th Mountain Division and Gen. Naumann moved their headquarters from Fort Drum in New York to Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona to command the mission.
The report says that Naumann is responsible for 6,600 service members under the banner of Joint Task Force Southern Border.
For now, the main role of soldiers at the southern border is to help and watch over Customs and Border Protection. As stated in the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, using military members to detain illegal immigrants is prohibited except in a couple of special instances.
This memo is being sent because the number of illegal border crossings has dropped severely following the start of President Trump’s second term. Only 7,180 people were caught crossing the southern border in March, which is much lower than the past four years’ average monthly figure of 155,000.
The number of apprehensions at the border each day is about 230 since March, which is a 95% decrease from the Biden administration’s usual 5,100.
A judge dismissed a lawsuit by churches against the Trump administration’s new policy on Friday, since the churches failed to prove how they would suffer from it.