Donald Trump has allowed the military to control land at US military borders as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants, the Guardian reported.
The approval came Friday in a memorandum from Trump to Home Affairs Secretary Doug Burgham, Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem and Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins, which outlined new policies regarding military involvement at the borders of the US southern region.
The memorandum entitled “Military Missions to Seal the US’s Southern Borders and Repel Invasions,” allows the US military to “play a more direct role” in securing the boundaries of the issue.
“Our southern borders are under attack from various threats,” the order argued. “The complexity of the current situation requires that our troops play a more direct role in securing southern borders than in the recent past.”
The memorandum added that the Department of Defense should grant jurisdiction to federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot-wide strip that spans California, Arizona and New Mexico. Doing so will grant the troops stationed there the legal right to detain migrants accused of trespassing as being a de facto elongated base.
MNA