Trump Administration’s Plans for Militarized Border in New Mexico – Report

The Trump administration is formulating a proposal that caters to longstanding conservative demands: a militarized buffer zone along the southern border in New Mexico, to be manned by active-duty US troops who would be authorized to detain migrants unlawfully entering the United States, according to the Washington Post.

The Post reports that recent internal deliberations have focused on stationing troops in a designated area of the New Mexico border, converting it into a military outpost. This transformation would legally empower soldiers to detain migrants considered to be “trespassing” on the extended military base. Unauthorized migrants would be held until they are handed over to immigration authorities.

This strategy seems to aim at establishing a large military base as a workaround to the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal statute that prohibits military personnel from engaging in most civilian law enforcement activities.

While calls for border militarization are not a novel concept, they have thus far remained largely in the realm of political discourse rather than concrete action.

In 2022, Blake Masters, an Arizona Senate candidate who garnered strong support from tech billionaire Peter Thiel—who also backed JD Vance’s campaign that year—aired a campaign advertisement advocating for such measures.

In 2018, Trump unexpectedly declared during a White House meeting with then-Defense Secretary Jim Mattis: “We are going to be guarding our border with our military. That’s a significant step.”

Despite the initial surge of media coverage, including reports in the Washington Post that suggested he was serious about the initiative, the proposal was never implemented on a large scale.

Seven months later, with Trump focusing on a purported migrant “caravan” ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, Mattis responded to the limited troop presence at the southern border by stating: “We don’t do stunts in this department.”

An in-depth exploration of the policies, controversies, and peculiarities of the Trump administration.

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Mark Esper, Mattis’s successor, disclosed in his memoir that Trump had suggested he breach the Posse Comitatus Act in 2020. Esper recounted that Trump asked him, merely a week after George Floyd’s murder, to deploy 10,000 active-duty troops to Washington, D.C., and to have them open fire on protesters. “Can’t you just shoot them?” Trump reportedly said in an Oval Office meeting. “Just shoot them in the legs or something?” Esper declined to acquiesce to this request.

A significant distinction between 2018, 2020, and the projected 2025 scenario is that Trump will not need to persuade a level-headed former general like Mattis or a West Point graduate like Esper to execute his plan to redirect military assets toward domestic law enforcement, as his current defense secretary is a former weekend television host who is considerably less likely to object.