The Trump administration wants to turn a long stretch of the U.S.-Mexico border into an Army base in an extraordinary move that’s likely to be challenged in court, U.S. officials told the Associated Press on Monday, three days after the White House released a memo entitled, “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” In that memo, President Trump said he wanted this border-militarization plan to be implemented within 45 days.
If it sounds familiar, the Washington Post reported last month White House officials were considering these actions in order to “empower active-duty U.S. troops to temporarily hold migrants who cross into the United States illegally.” States Newsroom also wrote about this most recent development on Friday, after the White House posted its memo online.
How it might run into legal trouble: The plan authorizes the U.S. military to begin occupation of federal land referred to as the Roosevelt Reservation, extending from New Mexico to California—with exemptions at Native American reservations. But such a plan “could put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, [which is] a possible violation of federal law” known as the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement, States Newsroom writes.
“It was not clear if the added land would require the military to deploy additional forces to the border,” AP reported Monday, reminding readers “There are about 7,100 active duty troops under federal control currently assigned to the border and about 4,600 National Guard troops under state control.”
Worth noting: Trump has already released five executive orders, which do not change existing law, “lay[ing] out the use of military forces within the U.S. borders and extend other executive powers to speed up the president’s immigration crackdown,” States Newsroom reported Friday.
Panning out: According to late March polling from Reuters, Trump is popular on “handling immigration,” but voters step back when it comes to specific policies his administration has chosen so far, pollster and data journalist G. Elliott Morris wrote Tuesday. Trump registered 49% support when it comes to “handling immigration,” with 44% not supporting. However, “when various pollsters asked if [U.S. voters] would support deporting immigrants who have been here more than 10 years (as in the case of Abrego Garcia), U.S. adults said ‘no’ by a 37 percentage point margin.” Americans also “disapprove of deporting immigrants who have broken no laws other than laws governing entry; they oppose deporting U.S. citizens convicted of crimes to foreign jails, such as [El Salvador’s Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo], and they oppose housing migrants at Guantanamo Bay while they are processed. All of these are policies the Trump administration has now floated or is actively carrying out.”
By the way: Trump and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele said Monday they won’t return Abrego Garcia, a Maryland father wrongfully deported to El Salvador on March 15. As historian Heather Cox Richardson notes, “Abrego Garcia maintains a full-time job, is married to a U.S. citizen, has three children, and has never been charged or convicted of anything.” And while he is a citizen of El Salvador, a 2019 U.S. court said that he must not be sent to El Salvador due to persecution risk.
The Supreme Court even announced (PDF) last Thursday that Garcia had been illegally removed from the U.S. and must be returned. However, the court cautioned a federal judge overseeing the case against applying perhaps too much pressure on the White House, referencing the president’s power over foreign affairs.
“I don’t have the power to return him to the United States,” Bukele said Monday beside Trump in the White House.
“Of course I’m not going to do it,” Trump said, and lashed out at a reporter for asking about Garcia. “How long do we have to answer this question from you?” the president complained. “Why don’t you just say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful that we’re keeping criminals out of our country?” The Hill has a bit more.
Trump even threatened to deport U.S. citizens to El Salvador in another move “experts said would violate U.S. law,” according to Reuters. Trump told reporters Monday, “We always have to obey the laws, but we also have homegrown criminals that push people into subways, that hit elderly ladies on the back of the head with a baseball bat when they’re not looking, that are absolute monsters. I’d like to include them in the group of people to get them out of the country, but you’ll have to be looking at the laws on that,” he said.
Expert reax: “There is no provision under U.S. law that would allow the government to kick citizens out of the country,” University of Notre Dame professor Erin Corcoran told Reuters.
Alt. coverage: Here’s the Rolling Stone’s headline: “Trump and Bukele Bond Over Human Rights Abuses in Oval Office Meeting”
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Welcome to this Tuesday edition of The D Brief, a newsletter dedicated to developments affecting the future of U.S. national security, brought to you by Ben Watson and Audrey Decker. Share your tips and feedback here. And if you’re not already subscribed, you can do that here. On this day in 2013, the Boston Marathon bombing killed three people and wounded more than 280 others.
Around the Defense Department
Developing: The U.S. military’s strikes in Yemen may be opening a path for militias to attack the Houthis along the Red Sea coast, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, citing U.S. and Yemeni officials. The latest known thinking for this plan concerns ultimately trying to take the port city of Hodeidah from the Iran-backed Houthis, whose base of power is in the mountainous capital city of Sana’a.
Monitoring: “Private American security contractors provided advice to the Yemeni factions on a potential ground operation, people involved in the planning” told the Journal. And “The United Arab Emirates, which supports these factions, raised the plan with American officials in recent weeks.”
Notable: “Nearly a month of U.S. strikes has shown mixed results,” Yemeni officials say. “Since the U.S. airstrikes began, the Houthis have launched missiles and drones near the USS Harry S. Truman, an aircraft carrier stationed in the Red Sea. They have also resumed their attacks on Israel,” the Journal reports.
Also: U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff just walked back comments that the Trump administration would consider allowing Iran to enrich uranium. Witkoff said Monday night on Fox News that the administration would cap enrichment levels at 3.67%, marking a departure from the administration’s previous goal to end Iran’s nuclear program completely, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Latest: But on Tuesday morning, Witkoff backtracked on social media and said that “Iran must stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program,” seemingly adding to the public uncertainty over what Trump exactly wants from the Iranians.
New: The Navy’s top training admiral has risen to the top of potential contenders to lead the service, Politico reported Monday citing five people “familiar with the process.”
His name is Adm. Daryl Caudle of U.S. Fleet Forces Command. He “traveled with [Navy Secretary John Phelan] in late March off the southeastern coast and to the Connecticut shipyard where the Virginia-class submarine is built,” and he “spent the past two weeks visiting senators,” according to Politico, which notes he’s “been unusually blunt in calling out failures in the defense industrial base.” Read on, here.
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Trump 2.0
U.S. defense programs could suffer with China’s halt on the export of rare Earth minerals, the New York Times reported Monday. China has restricted the export of critical minerals—a key component in U.S. defense technology—in retaliation against President Trump’s tariff war. “In announcing that it will now require special export licenses for six heavy rare earth metals, which are refined entirely in China, as well as rare earth magnets, 90 percent of which are produced in China, Beijing has reminded the Pentagon—if, indeed, it needed reminding—that a wide swath of American weaponry is dependent on China,” the Times writes. Read more, here.
The European Commission is giving burner phones and laptops to staff traveling to the U.S., fearing spying in America, the Financial Times reports.
And lastly: State Department funding could be cut in half, the Times reported Monday, citing an internal memo that proposes cutting almost all funding for the UN and NATO. The proposal would also axe funds for “humanitarian assistance and global health programs by more than 50 percent despite Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pledges that lifesaving assistance would be preserved.”
It remains to be seen whether Congress would approve such deep cuts, but all government agencies are facing pressure from the White House to submit their plans to shrink the federal government. Reuters has more.
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