Donald Trump has authorized the military to take control of land at the US-Mexico border as part of the president’s broader efforts to crack down on undocumented immigration, The Guardian reported.
The authorization came late on Friday in a memorandum from Trump to interior secretary Doug Burgum, defense secretary Pete Hegseth, homeland security secretary Kristi Noem and agricultural secretary Brooke Rollins, outlining new policies concerning military involvement at the US’s southern border.
The memorandum, entitled “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions”, allows the US’s armed forces to “take a more direct role” when it comes to securing the boundary in question.
“Our southern border is under attack from a variety of threats,” the order claimed. “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.”
The memorandum added that the Department of Defense should be given jurisdiction to federal lands, including the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60ft-wide strip that stretches over California, Arizona and New Mexico. Doing that would give troops stationed there the legal right to detain immigrants accused of trespassing on what in effect is an elongated base – and unauthorized immigrants would be held in custody until they could be turned over to immigration agents.
MNA
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