Trump Orders Military To Secure Southern Border on Federal Lands

On Friday, President Donald Trump authorized the U.S. military to assume control of federal lands along the southern border with Mexico, according to several reports.

“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” Trump stated in a National Security Presidential Memorandum released by the White House. “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.”

This directive builds on Trump’s earlier declaration of a national emergency at the southern border, issued on Inauguration Day. That declaration had called for a report within 90 days from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”

Under the new memorandum, the Pentagon has been given authority over specific federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation along the southern edges of California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Native American reservations are excluded from this directive, except where they are “reasonably necessary to enable military activities … including border-barrier construction and emplacement of detection and monitoring equipment.”

The memo also permits the “transfer and acceptance of jurisdiction over such Federal lands in accordance with applicable law to enable military activities … to occur on a military installation under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense and for the designation of such Federal lands as National Defense Areas by the Secretary of Defense.”

Hegseth is empowered by the memo to “determine those military activities that are reasonably necessary and appropriate to accomplish the mission assigned” under Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order titled “Clarifying the Military’s Role in Protecting the Territorial Integrity of the United States.”

Military personnel carrying out these directives will operate under “rules for the use of force prescribed by” Hegseth, according to the memo.

Additionally, Trump’s memorandum tasks Hegseth, Noem, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins with “initially implement[ing] this memorandum on a limited sector of Federal lands designated” by the Defense secretary.

Following the initial phase, Hegseth must “assess this initial phase” within 45 days and has the authority to “extend activities … to additional Federal lands along the southern border in coordination” with Noem, Stephen Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security adviser, “and other executive departments and agencies as appropriate,” the memo says.

After Trump’s Inauguration Day emergency declaration, the Pentagon deployed an additional 1,500 troops to the southern border, adding to the 2,500 already stationed there during the Biden administration. Further actions included relocating the headquarters of the 10th Mountain Division—and its commander, Maj. Gen. Scott Naumann—from Fort Drum in New York to Fort Huachuca in southeastern Arizona to oversee operations.

According to Newsmax, Naumann now leads about 6,600 troops under Joint Task Force Southern Border.

At present, the military's role at the southern border remains largely supportive, assisting Customs and Border Protection primarily with surveillance and detection, The Washington Post reported Friday. The 1878 Posse Comitatus Act generally restricts active-duty military personnel from performing direct law enforcement duties, such as apprehending illegal immigrants, except in narrowly defined cases.

The new military authorization comes amid a steep drop in illegal border crossings since Trump’s second term began. In March, Customs and Border Protection recorded 7,180 crossings at the southern border—a significant decrease compared to the monthly average of 155,000 during the previous four years.

Daily apprehensions have similarly plunged to around 230, marking a 95% decline from the Biden-era average of 5,100 per day.

Meanwhile, on Friday, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by churches challenging the Trump administration’s updated policy allowing immigration arrests near churches. The judge ruled that the religious organizations had not demonstrated sufficient harm to proceed with the case.