Trump Turns Southern Border Land Into 'Military Installation'

President Trump has given the Pentagon jurisdiction over a 60-foot-wide strip of public land in three states along the southern border as part of his plan to expand the military's involvement in immigration enforcement. The Wall Street Journal reports Trump released a presidential memorandum on Friday that ordered the Defense Department to take control of the Roosevelt Reservation, which spans California, New Mexico, and Arizona, with the goal of strengthening border security operations. "Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats," Trump's order read. "The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past."

According to the New York Times, the directive says the border strip—excluding Native American reservations—will become a "military installation under the jurisdiction" of the Pentagon. Although military personnel will be able to stop anyone from crossing into the area, they will not have the power to make immigration arrests themselves; Border Patrol agents could be called to make the arrests. And while the order doesn't explicitly call for the creation of temporary detention centers, defense officials have suggested the land may eventually be used to house migrants who cross the border illegally to relieve pressure on currently overcrowded detention facilities. An initial review of military activities in the area is scheduled 45 days after implementation begins.

Trump, who campaigned heavily on cracking down on illegal immigration, has put a renewed focus on border security. But before he returned to office earlier this year, the number of illegal border crossings had already significantly declined since record highs in late 2023 to levels seen during his first term. Since he took office again, the crossings have continued to decrease. "The numbers are incredible," Trump said Thursday. "Where they used to have hundreds of thousands of people standing there, going through the border in Tijuana, Mexico—this weekend they had nobody." (More President Trump stories.)