The US Department of Justice has started prosecuting migrants criminally for entering a newly declared military buffer zone along the US-Mexico border, as reported by Reuters. In Las Cruces, New Mexico, a federal court charged at least 28 migrants on Monday for crossing a 170-mile-long, 60-foot-wide militarized buffer zone patrolled by active-duty US troops.
Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, recently visited the area, announcing plans to extend the buffer zone along the border. He stated that the area is now a “national defense area” and any individual attempting to enter it without permission is essentially entering a military base.
The American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico expressed deep concerns about the increased militarization of borderlands communities. They argued that the expansion of military detention powers in the designated “border buffer zone” poses a threat to the constitutional principle that the military should not be responsible for policing civilians.
Court documents revealed that the migrants detained in the area were charged with both crossing the US-Mexico border unlawfully and entering a restricted zone. While Customs and Border Protection retains jurisdiction over such incidents, the military will hand over any detained individuals to US Border Patrol or other civilian law enforcement agencies. However, troops have not yet made any arrests within the New Mexico national defense area.
The buffer zone was established after transferring 110,000 acres of federal land to the US army. This move has long been supported by far-right politicians, such as the failed Arizona Senate candidate Blake Masters who devoted a campaign ad to the idea in 2022.
This buffer zone allows the Trump administration to use troops for migrant arrests without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act, which grants the president the authority to deploy the US military to suppress events like civil unrest. The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Approximately 11,900 troops are currently deployed along the US southwest border, where the number of migrants caught crossing unlawfully reached an all-time low in March, as per government data.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/apr/29/migrants-charged-us-mexico-border
