The US Departments of the Navy and Air Force are expected to announce the establishment of two additionalmilitary zonesalong the US southern border this week, three US officials told CNN.
The zones, which are known as National Defense Areas, will be attached to Joint Base San Antonio, Texas, and Marine Corps Air Station, Yuma, the officials said. The NDA around Joint Base San Antonio will include roughly 250 miles of the Rio Grande River, two of the officials added. The NDA near MCAS Yuma will extend over 100 miles along the border, the third official said.
The new zones will bring the total count up to four, after the establishment of the Texas National Defense Area attached to Fort Bliss, Texas, in May, and the New Mexico National Defense Area attached to Fort Huachuca, Arizona, in April.
“The establishment of a second National Defense Area increases our operational reach and effectiveness in denying illegal activity along the southern border,” US Northern Command commander Gen. Gregory Guillot said after the establishment of the Texas National Defense Area. “This is the second area in which Joint Task Force – Southern Border 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.”
US troops are prohibited from conducting law enforcement activities by the Posse Comitatus Act. But the defense areas are treated as extensions of military installations, allowing service members to temporarily detain migrants who are trespassing before handing them off to law enforcement, conduct cursory searches of trespassers, and conduct crowd-control measures.
Democratic lawmakers have criticized the defense areas as a way to side-step the act. Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking member of the Senates Armed Services Committee,said last monththat the NDAs “evade the long-standing protections of the Posse Comitatus Act by allowing military forces to act as de facto border police, detaining migrants until they can be transferred to Customs and Border Protection.”
“In the Administration’s telling, this approach permits military involvement in immigration control without invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807,” Reed said. “This is both unprecedented and a legal fiction.
Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexicoalso raised concernsto Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth last month that the Trump administration is “bypassing due process for individuals who either intentionally or unintentionally enter this newly restricted area.”
Service members began directly detaining migrants in June. The Department of Justice only just got its first convictions related to trespassing in the NDAs this month. According to the Justice Department, two individuals pleaded guilty to charges including trespassing into the New Mexico National Defense Area. In both cases, the individuals were apprehended by Border Patrol agents.
Dozens of national security charges against migrants were dropped by a judge in New Mexico earlier this month after they found little evidence that the migrants knew about the defense areas.
The establishment of the new defense areas comes as over 4,000 National Guard troops and roughly 700 active duty Marines are currently mobilized in the Los Angeles area, in response to protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions.