The Pentagon has established a second military zone in the El Paso area, enabling U.S. soldiers to patrol as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to curb illegal southern border crossings, despite these crossings being at a historic low.
U.S. Northern Command announced Thursday that this new military zone will be within the Fort Bliss Army base and will extend approximately 53 miles east to Fort Hancock, according to Maj. Geoffrey Carmichael of the Joint Task Force – Southern Border, as reported by Stars and Stripes.
Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, stated that this second National Defense Area will enhance their operational reach and effectiveness in preventing illegal activity along the southern border.
This development follows the Pentagon’s designation last month of a 60-foot-wide strip along the New Mexico-Mexico border as a military zone. On Monday, federal prosecutors charged over two dozen migrants with violating security regulations after the U.S. Army spotted them and alerted Border Patrol agents. These charges are in addition to the misdemeanor charge of illegal entry.
Geoffrey S. Corn, director of the Center for Military Law and Policy at Texas Tech University School of Law and retired U.S. Army lieutenant colonel, noted the long-standing federal prohibition on using the military for civilian law enforcement, as their primary mission is not law enforcement.
Corn stated that soldiers are “trained as warriors.”
Nevertheless, he believes the Trump administration has found a creative way to involve the military in immigration enforcement without congressional approval.
While the Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits the U.S. military from civilian law enforcement, the military purpose doctrine provides exceptions.
Corn argued that “using the military as part of border security reinforces the perception and the narrative that the nation is under some type of invasion,” despite the fact that “the number of border crossings has been steadily dropping for some time now.”
In March, the Department of Homeland Security reported 1,627 migrant encounters in the El Paso sector (including all of New Mexico’s border and parts of West Texas), an 87% decrease since August 2024.
Aimée Santillán, a policy analyst at the Hope Border Institute, an El Paso immigrant rights group, expressed concern over the “militarization of our border,” stating that this escalation is “deeply concerning” as it further criminalizes asylum seekers and could negatively impact humanitarian aid at a time when migrant deaths in the El Paso Border Patrol Sector are increasing.
Federal data compiled by No More Deaths, a migrant aid group, indicates that at least 176 migrants died in the El Paso sector in 2024, continuing a decade-long upward trend, compared to only one documented death in 2014.