Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to reporters about the establishment of the New Mexico National Defense Area along the southern border near Santa Teresa, N.M., on April 25, 2025. (Michael Graf/U.S. Army)
AUSTIN, Texas — Troops patrolling a new military zone at the U.S. border with Mexico have yet to detain anyone, even as federal charges move forward against more than two dozen migrants for illegally entering the strip of land in New Mexico.
Service members on April 21 were granted the authority to detain and search people for entering the 170-square-mile area that is now considered Army property, according to U.S. Northern Command, the combatant command overseeing the deployment of about 6,600 troops across the entire southwest border. Troops can also render medical treatment to anyone found in distress.
“To date, Joint Task Force Southern Border has not detained any unauthorized trespassers within the New Mexico National Defense Area,” said Army Maj. Geoffrey Carmichael, spokesman for the joint task force. “Whether U.S. citizens or not, those apprehended for trespassing (or committing other criminal offenses) on the military installation will be transferred over to appropriate non-[Defense Department] law enforcement authorities.”
It is not clear who made the arrests in the military zone, but Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Friday during his visit to the border that troops were working with Department of Homeland Security agencies to arrest migrants, according to a Washington Post report.
Service members remain in close partnership with Customs and Border Protection for patrols of the border, Carmichael said. Outside of the zone, troops do not have authorization to conduct law enforcement. Instead, they support federal immigration agents with monitoring and detection of potential illegal activity.
The military zone is about 60 feet wide and stretches across New Mexico’s border with Mexico. The Department of the Interior handed ownership of the federal land to the Defense Department for the next three years, according to the Pentagon. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll put it under the authority of Fort Huachuca in Arizona.
The federal land, known as the Roosevelt Reservation, does stretch into Arizona, but no land outside of New Mexico has been transferred to the Defense Department so far. An order signed by President Donald Trump would allow for this.
U.S. Soldiers, from 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry Regiment, 2nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, assigned to Joint Task Force — Southern Border, conduct a patrol of the southern border near Santa Teresa, N.M., April 13, 2025. Under the direction of U.S. Northern Command, Joint Task Force — Southern Border aligns efforts to seal the southern border and repel illegal activity and is responsible for full-scale, agile, and all-domain operations, which will allow for more effective and efficient DoD operations. (U.S. Army)
The 28 migrants detained were charged Monday in U.S. District Court in Las Cruces, N.M., for crossing into the area, according to the Post.
The court records for the migrants did not offer many details, the Post reported. However, each has the defense-related charge that migrants “willfully violated the order issued on April 18, 2025, by the U.S. Army Garrison Fort Huachuca military commander designating the New Mexico National Defense Areas, also known as the Roosevelt Reservation, as both a restricted area and a controlled area under Army Regulation 190-13,” which prohibits unauthorized entry.
“This is Department of Defense property,” Hegseth said when he visited the area. “Any illegal [attempt] to enter that zone is entering a military base — a federally protected area. You will be detained. You will be interdicted by U.S. troops and border patrol working together.”
To prepare for patrols in the zone, troops participated in training on how to temporarily apprehend trespassers, Carmichael said.
“This training prepares our personnel to operate under the authorities to prevent unauthorized access and to detect and deter potential security threats to maintain security, order, and discipline, which may include apprehending those who enter without authorization,” he said.
The Army also began installing signs and barriers to inform and deter potential trespassers, said Capt. Victoria Goldfedib, an Army spokeswoman.
During Hegseth’s visit, he held one of these signs up to show troops that each states in English and Spanish that the area is under U.S. military jurisdiction.
Military deployments to support Customs and Border Protection first began in 2018 during Trump’s first term and continued under former President Joe Biden with about 2,500 National Guard at the border at the end of his administration.
When Trump returned to office in January, he ordered active-duty forces to the mission. So far, more than 4,000 have deployed to the border — some with Stryker armored combat vehicles that use cameras able to monitor activity up to two miles away.
Those vehicles were only operating in Texas, the border task force said earlier this month.
