US expands militarized zones to 1/3 of southern border, stirring
controversy
[July 05, 2025]
By MORGAN LEE
COLUMBUS, N.M. (AP) — Orange no-entry signs posted by the U.S. military
in English and Spanish dot the New Mexico desert, where a border wall
cuts past onion fields and parched ranches with tufts of tall grass
growing amidst wiry brush and yucca trees.
The Army has posted thousands of the warnings in New Mexico and western
Texas, declaring a “restricted area by authority of the commander.” It’s
part of a major shift that has thrust the military into border
enforcement with Mexico like never before.
The move places long stretches of the border under the supervision of
nearby military bases, empowering U.S. troops to detain people who enter
the country illegally and sidestep a law prohibiting military
involvement in civilian law enforcement. It is done under the authority
of the national emergency on the border declared by President Donald
Trump on his first day in office.
U.S. authorities say the zones are needed to close gaps in border
enforcement and help in the wider fight against human smuggling networks
and brutal drug cartels.
The militarization is being challenged in court, and has been criticized
by civil rights advocates, humanitarian aid groups and outdoor
enthusiasts who object to being blocked from public lands while troops
have free rein.
Abbey Carpenter, a leader of a search-and-rescue group for missing
migrants, said public access is being denied across sweltering stretches
of desert where migrant deaths have surged.
“Maybe there are more deaths, but we don’t know," she said.
Military expansion
Two militarized zones form a buffer along 230 miles (370 kilometers) of
border, from Fort Hancock, Texas, through El Paso and westward across
vast New Mexico ranchlands.
The Defense Department added an additional 250-mile (400-kilometer) zone
last week in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and plans another near Yuma,
Arizona. Combined, the zones will cover nearly one-third of the U.S.
border with Mexico.
They are patrolled by at least 7,600 members of the armed forces, vastly
expanding the U.S. government presence on the border.
Reaction to the military buffer has been mixed among residents of New
Mexico's rural Luna County, where a strong culture of individual liberty
is tempered by the desire to squelch networks bringing migrants and
contraband across the border.
“We as a family have always been very supportive of the mission, and
very supportive of border security,” said James Johnson, a
fourth-generation farmer overseeing seasonal laborers as they filled
giant plastic crates with onions, earning $22 per container.
Military deployments under prior presidents put “eyes and ears” on the
border, Johnson said. This version is “trying to give some teeth.”
But some hunters and hikers fear they’re being locked out of a rugged
and cherished landscape.
“I don’t want to go down there with my hunting rifle and all of a sudden
somebody rolls up on me and says that I’m in a military zone,” said Ray
Trejo, a coordinator for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and a Luna
County commissioner. “I don’t know if these folks have been taught to
deescalate situations.”
A former public school teacher of English as a second language, Trejo
said military trespassing charges seem inhumane in an economy built on
immigrant farm labor.
“If the Army, Border Patrol, law enforcement in general are detaining
people for reasons of transporting, of human smuggling, I don’t have a
problem,” he said. “But people are coming into our country to work,
stepping now all of a sudden into a military zone, and they have no
idea.”
Nicole Wieman, an Army command spokesperson, said the Army is
negotiating possible public access for recreation and hunting, and will
honor private rights to grazing and mining.
Increased punishment
More than 1,400 migrants have been charged with trespassing on military
territory, facing a possible 18-month prison sentence for a first
offense. That’s on top of an illegal entry charge that brings up to six
months in custody. After that, most are turned over to U.S. Customs and
Border Protection for likely deportation. There have been no apparent
arrests of U.S. citizens.
At a federal courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the banks of the
Upper Rio Grande, migrants in drab county jail jumpsuits and chains
filed before a magistrate judge on a recent weekday.
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A sign warns against unauthorized entry into a militarized zone
along the southern U.S. border in New Mexico on June 12, 2025. (AP
Photo/Morgan Lee)
A 29-year-old Guatemalan woman struggled to understand instructions
through a Spanish interpreter as she pleaded guilty to illegal
entry. A judge set aside military trespassing charges for lack of
evidence, but sentenced her to two weeks in jail before being
transferred for likely deportation.
“She sells pottery, she’s a very simple woman with a sixth-grade
education,” a public defense attorney told the judge. “She told me
she’s going back and she’s going to stay there.”
Border crossings
Border Patrol arrests along the southern border this year have
dropped to the lowest level in six decades, including a 30% decrease
in June from the prior month as attempted crossings dwindle. On June
28, the Border Patrol made only 137 arrests, a stark contrast with
late 2023, when arrests topped 10,000 on the busiest days.
The first militarized zones, introduced in April and May, extend
west of El Paso past factories and cattle yards to partially
encircle the New Mexico border village of Columbus, and its 1,450
residents. It was here that Mexican revolutionary forces led by
Pancho Villa crossed into the U.S. in a deadly 1916 raid.
These days, a port of entry at Columbus is where hundreds of
children with U.S. citizenship cross daily from a bedroom community
in Mexico to board public school buses and attend classes nearby.
Columbus Mayor Philip Skinner, a Republican, says he's seen the
occasional military vehicle but no evidence of disruption in an area
where illegal crossings have been rare.
“We're kind of not tuned in to this national politics,” Skinner
said.
Oversight is divided between U.S. Army commands in Fort Bliss,
Texas, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The militarized zones sidestep
the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military
from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.
Russell Johnson, a rancher and former Border Patrol agent, said he
welcomes the new militarized zone where his ranch borders Mexico on
land leased from the Bureau of Land Management.
“We have seen absolutely almost everything imaginable that can
happen on the border, and most of it’s bad,” he said, recalling
off-road vehicle chases on his ranch and lifeless bodies recovered
by Border Patrol.
In late April, he said, five armored military vehicles spent several
days at a gap in the border wall, where construction was suspended
at the outset of the Biden presidency. But, he said, he hasn't seen
much of the military in recent weeks.
“The only thing that’s really changed is the little extra signage,”
he said. “We’re not seeing the military presence out here like we
kind of anticipated."
Court challenges
Federal public defenders have challenged the military's new
oversight of public land in New Mexico, seizing on the arrest of a
Mexican man for trespassing through remote terrain to test the legal
waters.
They decried the designation of a new military zone without
congressional authorization “for the sole purpose of enabling
military action on American soil” as "a matter of staggering and
unpreceded political significance.” A judge has not ruled on the
issue.
In the meantime, court challenges to trespassing charges in the
militarized zone have met with a mixture of convictions and
acquittals at trial.
Ryan Ellison, the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico, won
trespassing convictions in June against two immigrants who entered a
militarized zone again after an initial warning. “There’s not going
to be an issue as to whether or not they were on notice,” he told a
recent news conference.
American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rebecca Sheff says the
federal government is testing a more punitive approach to border
enforcement with the new military zones and worries it will be
expanded border-wide.
“To the extent the federal government has aspirations to establish a
much more hostile military presence along the border, this is a
vehicle that they’re pushing on to potentially do so. … And that’s
very concerning,” she said.
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