The Pentagon is creating a second expanded military zone at the southwestern border, to be patrolled by U.S. soldiers, in the Trump administration’s latest step to militarize the boundary with Mexico to help stem the flow of migrants.
The military’s Northern Command said in a statement on Thursday evening that it was establishing a narrow strip of land along the southern border of Texas that will become part of Fort Bliss, near El Paso. The strip will be about 63 miles long.
Last month, the Pentagon created a 60-foot-wide strip of land along 200 miles of the border between New Mexico and Mexico, effectively turning it into part of a U.S. military base there.
Migrants entering the newly designated military installations, or national defense areas, will be considered to be trespassing and can be temporarily detained by U.S. troops until Border Patrol agents arrive, military officials said.
A small group of migrants was charged on Monday with crossing into the military zone in New Mexico after an Army helicopter spotted them approaching the border and alerted the Border Patrol.
“The establishment of a second national defense area increases our operational reach and effectiveness in denying illegal activity along the southern border,” Gen. Gregory M. Guillot, the head of Northern Command, said in a statement.
General Guillot said that “service members who are already detecting and monitoring through stationary positions and mobile patrols nearby can now temporarily detain trespassers until they are transferred to an appropriate law enforcement entity.”
The new Pentagon directives expand a military presence that has increased steadily along the southern border in recent months, even as crossings have already dropped precipitously during the Trump administration.
The Pentagon has sent nearly 8,000 active-duty troops to the border, as well as spy planes in the skies and Navy warships offshore, to comply with President Trump’s order in January to increase the military’s role in stemming the flow of migrants into the United States.
Armed infantry and support troops from the Fourth Infantry Division at Fort Carson in Colorado — one of the Army’s most seasoned combat units — make up a major portion of the ground force in what the Pentagon calls Joint Task Force-Southern Border.
