I have a first glance to what could become a nightmare

El Paso, Texas-The president of armored military vehicles, Donald Trump, has sent to the border between the United States and Mexico, weighs 50,000 pounds each and has thermal and infrared cameras saying Be able to detect “a small mouse up to a mile.”

That feature could attract Trump, who has referred to people who cross the border without authorization as “Rats” WHO “infest“The nation.

Last week, when a soldier emerged from one of the huge eight wheels, armed with a couple of binoculars and a grimace, he briefly pushed his attention from the border between the United States and Mexico.

He overturned on his left shoulder, looking inside the United States, and me.

It was one of the approximately 10,000 members of the US army who are now parked at the border, many of which now patrol the areas where, according to the president, they have the authority to detain civilians.

In recent weeks, Trump has directed to the army take control of thousands of land acres along the border in Texas and New Mexicotreating almost 250 miles from the border between the United States and Mexico as de facto military facilities known as “National Defense Areas”. As a result, people who cross the border in these areas are now not only susceptible to illegal entry charges, but also of raid on a military installation. This escalation also supposedly offers soldiers the legal authority to detain civilians for transfer.

In summary: Trump has issued an enormously significant order for troops to stop people for civil criminal violations on US soil. On the border between the United States and Mexico last week, I saw how a National Military Police force could be.

Matt Shuham/News themezone

Arriving at the border

In addition to the increase in air surveillance and logistical support, there are now at least three armored and armored Stryker vehicles, each in Texas and the southeast of New Mexico. Strykers are not armed, but soldiers inside them carry rifles, as well as others along the border. (Around 50 These vehicles arrived at the border in April; It is not clear how many are in use).

Four other journalists and I participated in a tour of the US army. UU. Last week, being grazing around the border lands in a sprinter truck. Starting in Fort Bliss, we first conducted through the center of El Paso, Texas, to the Bollard fence that marks many urban borders with Mexico. We passed through the door, going south, and our truck staggered among the sandy potholes until we stopped under the Americas bridge.

For the first time in the history of the United States, the soldiers have allegedly received the authority to detain people in the border lands of New Mexico and western Texas for the field that they are invading a military base. Although the POSSE Comitatus Law of 1878 restricts the use of the military for the domestic police, a lagoon known as the Military purpose doctrine It allows exceptions in which soldiers are working to promote a mainly military function, such as protecting a military base. Trump’s recent orders take advantage of this escape.

It may be able to detect circular logic. The hundreds of miles of new “military facilities” along the border have provided the land of hundreds of transfer positions, and potentially thousands more in the future. The purpose of these positions is to protect the military bases. Those bases, According to the armythey are part of a general effort to “seal the southern border and repel the illegal activity”, as well as “Denying illegal activity along the southern border.” But the now central search charges for that effort would not be legal if the bases did not exist.

According to the armythese new areas of national defense vary from 60 feet to more than 3 mile depth, although the army has not released maps to clarify its exact dimensions. Analysis of land transfer data earlier this month, a spokesman for Senator Martin Heinrich (DN.M.) Sourcenm said The border militarization scheme has serious implications for anyone who leads throughout New Mexico State Road 9 “that could stop to stretch your legs and invade a military base.”

Dozen Migrants have already declared themselves guilty of the new transfer positions. But many Others have seen their dismissed positions, with a federal judge who said earlier this month that there was no reason to believe that they even knew they were stepping on a military mission.

At least until now, arrests have been made by border patrol agents, not the soldiers. But that could change, especially if the number of unauthorized border crossings increases as temperatures cool in autumn. In addition, until now, it seems that no American citizen has been accused of transferring border facilities, but there is nothing in the legal authorities cited by the Trump administration that would prevent it.

These developments are only the last in decades of border militarization. United States, under presidents of both parties, has built Hundreds of miles of fencing along the border between the United States and Mexico in recent decades. The border patrol recently celebrated her 100 birthdayand especially since September 11, 2001, the border application has become increasingly aggressive, with high -tech surveillance equipment and thousands of armed agents, whose presence, especially because recent presidents have attacked asylum rights along the border, tends to push people isolated and sterile parts of the desert. In recent years, Army members have served in support from the border, helping with logistics and surveillance tasks.

Even so, Trump has accelerated this trend in his second term. Now, there are 10,000 soldiers along the border as part of the federal mission, compared to 2,500 in January. And the threat of transfer charges is palpable. Veteran border journalist Todd Miller He wrote this month That on a recent trip to try to take photos of the new signage of the Department of Defense, he noticed a camera system in an unmarked truck that seemed to be tracking his movements.

Last Thursday, I Felt a similar Chill When the Soldier Trained His Binoculars On Me. Was he just hyamming it up for a scheduled media tour? Maybe so. But what about the thousands of America blas live walking distance to a border National Defense Area? And what if Trump, as is expectedKeeps Expanding these National Defense Areas Across The Entire Southern Border? What happens if you start declaring them throughout the country?

Pointing to the Rio Grande, I tried to Joke on an Army public affair, Referring to the Soldier with the binoculars. “You Should Tell Him The Border is that way.” The Officer Didn’t Respond. The Soldier With The Binoculars Dips Back Inside His Air-Conditioned Vehicle. We left, driving back under the bridge of the Americas, waiting as a public affairs officer hit a code that hired an engine and opened the doors to the United States, then took the road to New Mexico.

Matt Shuham/News themezone

‘Regardless of citizenship’

At the beginning of our four -hour tour, the three army spokesmen commissioned to escort our group several points along the border, quickly temperate expectations. As a Condition for the trip, they were not To Be Named or Quoted, They Said.

The answers to some questions were evident.

Earlier this month, for example, a federal judge dismissed The charges of transfer against almost 100 defendants who allegedly crossed the border towards a national defense area, ruling “the United States does not provide data from which it could be reasonably concluded that the defendant knew that he was entering the [New Mexico National Defense Area]. “

Warning of border crusaders in English and Spanish that were standing in military property appeared in increases of 100 meters, in signs taken to the desert sand. They have just over one foot wide and use a half -inch source, 30 feet or more inland were already placed from the portions of the border wall I saw. It is easy to imagine that migrants standing on Mexican soil do not even notice the signs, much less to be able to distinguish what they say.

Many Questions Remain Unanswered. Here they are a fir in an in an email This week to the us army, which has not answered: What are the rule of engagement for soldiers? When can they use lethal force? Are Soldiers Allowed To Carry Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, “Less-Than-Lethal” Ammunition, and/or similar Arms? Do soldiers who work in the areas of National Defense receive any specific border training? Any training in crowds or arrests? Have you trained with the border patrol? Is the military authorized to do vehicle chases if sumone crosses into any and then Flees? What about the soldiers operating with customs and border protection vehicles? Can the military stop people during the night? Has that happened? Has an American citizen been arrested for searching for a NDA?

“As with any military installation, this land is under administrative jurisdiction of the Department of Defense,” said Geoffrey A. Carmichael, a student of Public Affairs of the US Army. UU., A News themezone in a previous statement, before sending the previous questions.

“This includes authority to avoid unauthorized access and to detect and deter possible security threats to maintain security, order and discipline, which may include detaining those who enter without authorization. Any person apprehended by transferring (or the officers of the Law of the Law of the Law of the Law that are not those who do not have the law of the law of the law of the law that do not do so quickly.”

“But i want to make it very crazy,” Carmichael Said. “The application of the law is not a responsibility of the DOD. The application of the law and the award, in addition to what you have seen recently, is the responsibility of CBP and the Department of Justice.”

Also among unanswered questions: are soldiers really helping to “secure” the border? The Administration Sems to Think So.

“If you see the types in camouflage now with binocular, or in Stryker vehicles with rifles, they have the authority to stop the illegal and help the border patrol and deliver them, and now, to be accused by the Department of Justice of up to 10 years,” said defense secretary Pete Hegseth in a Two weeks ago.

The number of charges, troops, spike wire and national defense areas would continue “up,” he said, because “we are going to obtain the 100% border operational control. “

Lone Star, the governor of the Parallel (but not related) mission of Texas to militarize the border of that state using soldiers of the National Guard of Texas, state soldiers and state transfer charges. That mission has also been tarnished by the alleged Human Rights Abuse and free political theater.

Even so, even before the declaration of national defense areas, the crosses were already in historical minimumswhen they began to fall during the Biden administration due to much larger forces. Mexico, under pressure from the United States, has done so for years aggressively moved Use your military application and the law to keep migrants away from the American border. AND Both Trump and former president Joe Biden It was drastically measured in asylum rights on the border, in the case of Biden with a numerical limit, and in Trump simply declaring that border crossings are an emergency and eliminate asylum rights almost completely.

Until last Thursday, the Army said that it had made 190 “detections” since the New Mexico National Defense Area was first established in April, a tiny number compared to the border patrol Daily work.

Santa Teresa

Seeing the military presence reinforced on the border made it clear that this is more than “operational control.” It is also optics. The office of the military looks hard, and Trump loves to look hard.

After our sprinter truck left the step, we headed west, towards New Mexico, passing the Border Patrol Station of Santa Teresa and we continued until there was nothing around us, but a endless desert thickets. A surveillance hovered nearby. We turned to a black line on the horizon, which became bold until it became a 20 -foot bollard wall.

We disembark in soft sand a few steps from the wall. The sun looked over, and in a matter of minutes my phone went out, overheating and showing an error screen. The dust clung to my eyes and my boots seemed to sink into the changing floor.

We were just a couple of miles from an entrance port, but I couldn’t say it. Later, I would find that the group no more deaths, a humanitarian organization, had mapped A group of engraved human remains In recent years, where we were standing.

A few feet from a armored Stryker vehicle, a deserted and deserted backpack sat on the floor, the content spilled on the earth: a toothbrush, ointment, deodorant, a baseball cap.

The Stryker vehicle was still on a sandy hill, which seemed to look at me. This time, nobody left the vehicle.

Matt Shuham/News themezone

From the administration of Obama, Many migrants Border agents have been voluntarily delivered after making the exhausting trip to the north, choosing to pursue their right to a case of asylum in the United States. An important benefit of that route is the opportunity to avoid more trekking through the mortal desert. Now, given the new transfer positions and the animosity of the United States towards the asylum process itself, more people could try to avoid detection completely. Etencing in the eyes against the sun and the hot sand, I felt overwhelmed at thought.

For dozens of migrants arrested here under the new transfer positions, the next stop has been the local prison. For others, it could be immigration arrest. For those who try to escape detection, the trip could continue through the desert, for the time they can survive.

Because I was born in Maryland, the US Army. Uu. It took me to a service station, then to a Fort Bliss parking lot. My trip to the border was over.