The Pentagon has created a second military zone in the El Paso area that U.S. soldiers will patrol as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to crack down on people crossing the southern border illegally, even as crossings are at a historic low.
{snip} The military newspaper Stars and Stripes reported that the area stretches about 53 miles east to the border community of Fort Hancock, according to Maj. Geoffrey Carmichael, spokesman for the Joint Task Force – Southern Border.
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Last month, the Pentagon designated a 60-foot-wide strip of land along the New Mexico-Mexico border as a military zone. On Monday, federal prosecutors charged more than two dozen migrants with violating security regulations after the U.S. Army spotted the group approaching the area and alerted Border Patrol agents. {snip}
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, said that for more than two centuries the federal government has prohibited the U.S. military from enforcing civilian laws, in part because soldiers’ mission isn’t law enforcement.
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Still, he said, the Trump administration has found an ingenious way of using the military for immigration enforcement without asking Congress for permission.
Under the Posse Comitatus Act, the U.S. military is prohibited from conducting civilian law enforcement. However, an exception known as the military purpose doctrine allows it in some cases.
“Using the military as part of border security reinforces the perception and the narrative that the nation is under some type of invasion,” he said. {snip}
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