US expands militarized zones to 1/3 of southern border, stirring controversy

COLUMBUS, N.M. (AP) — Orange no-entry signs posted by the U.S. military in English and Spanish dot the New Mexico desert, where a border wall cuts past onion fields and parched ranches with tufts of tall grass growing amidst wiry brush and yucca trees.

The Army has posted thousands of the warnings in New Mexico and western Texas, declaring a “restricted area by authority of the commander.” It’s part of a major shift that has thrust the military into border enforcement with Mexico like never before.

The move places long stretches of the border under the supervision of nearby military bases, empowering U.S. troops to detain people who enter the country illegally and sidestep a law prohibiting military involvement in civilian law enforcement. It is done under the authority of the national emergency on the border declared by President Donald Trump on his first day in office.

U.S. authorities say the zones are needed to close gaps in border enforcement and help in the wider fight against human smuggling networks and brutal drug cartels.

The militarization is being challenged in court, and has been criticized by civil rights advocates, humanitarian aid groups and outdoor enthusiasts who object to being blocked from public lands while troops have free rein.

Abbey Carpenter, a leader of a search-and-rescue group for missing migrants, said public access is being denied across sweltering stretches of desert where migrant deaths have surged.

“Maybe there are more deaths, but we don’t know," she said.

Two militarized zones form a buffer along 230 miles (370 kilometers) of border, from Fort Hancock, Texas, through El Paso and westward across vast New Mexico ranchlands.

The Defense Department added an additional 250-mile (400-kilometer) zone last week in Texas’ Rio Grande Valley and plans another near Yuma, Arizona. Combined, the zones will cover nearly one-third of the U.S. border with Mexico.

They are patrolled by at least 7,600 members of the armed forces, vastly expanding the U.S. government presence on the border.

Reaction to the military buffer has been mixed among residents of New Mexico's rural Luna County, where a strong culture of individual liberty is tempered by the desire to squelch networks bringing migrants and contraband across the border.

“We as a family have always been very supportive of the mission, and very supportive of border security,” said James Johnson, a fourth-generation farmer overseeing seasonal laborers as they filled giant plastic crates with onions, earning $22 per container.

Military deployments under prior presidents put “eyes and ears” on the border, Johnson said. This version is “trying to give some teeth.”

But some hunters and hikers fear they’re being locked out of a rugged and cherished landscape.

“I don’t want to go down there with my hunting rifle and all of a sudden somebody rolls up on me and says that I’m in a military zone,” said Ray Trejo, a coordinator for the New Mexico Wildlife Federation and a Luna County commissioner. “I don’t know if these folks have been taught to deescalate situations.”

A former public school teacher of English as a second language, Trejo said military trespassing charges seem inhumane in an economy built on immigrant farm labor.

“If the Army, Border Patrol, law enforcement in general are detaining people for reasons of transporting, of human smuggling, I don’t have a problem,” he said. “But people are coming into our country to work, stepping now all of a sudden into a military zone, and they have no idea.”

Nicole Wieman, an Army command spokesperson, said the Army is negotiating possible public access for recreation and hunting, and will honor private rights to grazing and mining.

More than 1,400 migrants have been charged with trespassing on military territory, facing a possible 18-month prison sentence for a first offense. That’s on top of an illegal entry charge that brings up to six months in custody. After that, most are turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection for likely deportation. There have been no apparent arrests of U.S. citizens.

At a federal courthouse in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on the banks of the Upper Rio Grande, migrants in drab county jail jumpsuits and chains filed before a magistrate judge on a recent weekday.

A 29-year-old Guatemalan woman struggled to understand instructions through a Spanish interpreter as she pleaded guilty to illegal entry. A judge set aside military trespassing charges for lack of evidence, but sentenced her to two weeks in jail before being transferred for likely deportation.

“She sells pottery, she’s a very simple woman with a sixth-grade education,” a public defense attorney told the judge. “She told me she’s going back and she’s going to stay there.”

Border Patrol arrests along the southern border this year have dropped to the lowest level in six decades, including a 30% decrease in June from the prior month as attempted crossings dwindle. On June 28, the Border Patrol made only 137 arrests, a stark contrast with late 2023, when arrests topped 10,000 on the busiest days.

The first militarized zones, introduced in April and May, extend west of El Paso past factories and cattle yards to partially encircle the New Mexico border village of Columbus, and its 1,450 residents. It was here that Mexican revolutionary forces led by Pancho Villa crossed into the U.S. in a deadly 1916 raid.

These days, a port of entry at Columbus is where hundreds of children with U.S. citizenship cross daily from a bedroom community in Mexico to board public school buses and attend classes nearby.

Columbus Mayor Philip Skinner, a Republican, says he's seen the occasional military vehicle but no evidence of disruption in an area where illegal crossings have been rare.

“We're kind of not tuned in to this national politics,” Skinner said.

Oversight is divided between U.S. Army commands in Fort Bliss, Texas, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The militarized zones sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement on U.S. soil.

Russell Johnson, a rancher and former Border Patrol agent, said he welcomes the new militarized zone where his ranch borders Mexico on land leased from the Bureau of Land Management.

“We have seen absolutely almost everything imaginable that can happen on the border, and most of it’s bad,” he said, recalling off-road vehicle chases on his ranch and lifeless bodies recovered by Border Patrol.

In late April, he said, five armored military vehicles spent several days at a gap in the border wall, where construction was suspended at the outset of the Biden presidency. But, he said, he hasn't seen much of the military in recent weeks.

“The only thing that’s really changed is the little extra signage,” he said. “We’re not seeing the military presence out here like we kind of anticipated."

Federal public defenders have challenged the military's new oversight of public land in New Mexico, seizing on the arrest of a Mexican man for trespassing through remote terrain to test the legal waters.

They decried the designation of a new military zone without congressional authorization “for the sole purpose of enabling military action on American soil” as "a matter of staggering and unpreceded political significance.” A judge has not ruled on the issue.

In the meantime, court challenges to trespassing charges in the militarized zone have met with a mixture of convictions and acquittals at trial.

Ryan Ellison, the top federal prosecutor in New Mexico, won trespassing convictions in June against two immigrants who entered a militarized zone again after an initial warning. “There’s not going to be an issue as to whether or not they were on notice,” he told a recent news conference.

American Civil Liberties Union attorney Rebecca Sheff says the federal government is testing a more punitive approach to border enforcement with the new military zones and worries it will be expanded border-wide.

“To the extent the federal government has aspirations to establish a much more hostile military presence along the border, this is a vehicle that they’re pushing on to potentially do so. … And that’s very concerning,” she said.

Seasonal laborers harvest onions on a privately owned ranch along the southern U.S. border in an unincorporated area 15 miles west of Columbus, N.M., on June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Tensions run high over management of federal public lands and wildlife at a Luna County Commission meeting in Deming, N.M., on June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

A military transport and surveillance vehicle is parked in a newly designated national defense area on June 11, 2025, along the southern U.S. border in El Paso, Texas. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

Seasonal laborers harvest onions on a privately owned ranch along the southern U.S. border in an unincorporated area 15 miles west of Columbus, N.M., on June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

A sign warns against unauthorized entry into a militarized zone along the southern U.S. border in New Mexico on June 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Morgan Lee)

U.S. forces have boarded another oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea. The announcement was made Friday by the U.S. military. The Trump administration has been targeting sanctioned tankers traveling to and from Venezuela.

The pre-dawn action was carried out by U.S. Marines and Navy, taking part in the monthslong buildup of forces in the Caribbean, according to U.S. Southern Command, which declared “there is no safe haven for criminals” as it announced the seizure of the vessel called the Olina.

Navy officials couldn’t immediately provide details about whether the Coast Guard was part of the force that took control of the vessel as has been the case in the previous seizures. A spokesperson for the U.S. Coast Guard said there was no immediate comment on the seizure.

The Olina is the fifth tanker that has been seized by U.S. forces as part of a broader effort by Trump’s administration to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following the U.S. ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.

The latest:

Richard Grenell, president of the Kennedy Center, says a documentary film about first lady Melania Trump will make its premiere later this month, posting a trailer on X.

As the Trumps prepared to return to the White House last year, Amazon Prime Video announced a year ago that it had obtained exclusive licensing rights for a streaming and theatrical release directed by Brett Ratner.

Melania Trump also released a self-titled memoir in late 2024.

Some artists have canceled scheduled Kennedy Center performances after a newly installed board voted to add President Donald Trump’s to the facility, prompting Grenell to accuse the performers of making their decisions because of politics.

Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum says that she has asked her foreign affairs secretary to reach out directly to U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio or Trump regarding comments by the American leader that the U.S. cold begin ground attacks against drug cartels.

In a wide-ranging interview with Fox News aired Thursday night, Trump said, “We’ve knocked out 97% of the drugs coming in by water and we are going to start now hitting land, with regard to the cartels. The cartels are running Mexico. It’s very sad to watch.”

As she has on previous occasions, Sheinbaum downplayed the remarks, saying “it is part of his way of communicating.” She said she asked her Foreign Affairs Secretary Juan Ramón de la Fuente to strengthen coordination with the U.S.

Sheinbaum has repeatedly rebuffed Trump’s offer to send U.S. troops after Mexican drug cartels. She emphasizes that there will be no violation of Mexico’s sovereignty, but the two governments will continue to collaborate closely.

Analysts do not see a U.S. incursion in Mexico as a real possibility, in part because Sheinbaum’s administration has been doing nearly everything Trump has asked and Mexico is a critical trade partner.

Trump says he wants to secure $100 billion to remake Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, a lofty goal going into a 2:30 meeting on Friday with executives from leading oil companies. His plan rides on oil producers being comfortable in making commitments in a country plagued by instability, inflation and uncertainty.

The president has said that the U.S. will control distribution worldwide of Venezuela’s oil and will share some of the proceeds with the country’s population from accounts that it controls.

“At least 100 Billion Dollars will be invested by BIG OIL, all of whom I will be meeting with today at The White House,” Trump said Friday in a pre-dawn social media post.

Trump is banking on the idea that he can tap more of Venezuela’s petroleum reserves to keep oil prices and gasoline costs low.

At a time when many Americans are concerned about affordability, the incursion in Venezuela melds Trump’s assertive use of presidential powers with an optical spectacle meant to convince Americans that he can bring down energy prices.

Trump is expected to meet with oil executives at the White House on Friday.

He hopes to secure $100 billion in investments to revive Venezuela’s oil industry. The goal rides on the executives’ comfort with investing in a country facing instability and inflation.

Since a U.S. military raid captured former Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro on Saturday, Trump has said there’s a new opportunity to use the country’s oil to keep gasoline prices low.

The full list of executives invited to the meeting has not been disclosed, but Chevron, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips are expected to attend.

Attorneys general in five Democratic-led states have filed a lawsuit against President Donald Trump’s administration after it said it would freeze money for several public benefit programs.

The Trump administration has cited concerns about fraud in the programs designed to help low-income families and their children. California, Colorado, Minnesota, Illinois and New York states filed the lawsuit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

The lawsuit asks the courts to order the administration to release the funds. The attorneys general have called the funding freeze an unconstitutional abuse of power.

Iran’s judiciary chief has vowed decisive punishment for protesters, signaling a coming crackdown against demonstrations.

Iranian state television reported the comments from Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei on Friday. They came after Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei criticized Trump’s support for the protesters, calling Trump’s hands “stained with the blood of Iranians.”

The government has shut down the internet and is blocking international calls. State media has labeled the demonstrators as “terrorists.”

The protests began over Iran’s struggling economy and have become a significant challenge to the government. Violence has killed at least 50 people, and more than 2,270 have been detained.

Trump questions why a president’s party often loses in midterm elections and suggests voters “want, maybe a check or something”

Trump suggested voters want to check a president’s power and that’s why they often deliver wins for an opposing party in midterm elections, which he’s facing this year.

“There’s something down, deep psychologically with the voters that they want, maybe a check or something. I don’t know what it is, exactly,” he said.

He said that one would expect that after winning an election and having “a great, successful presidency, it would be an automatic win, but it’s never been a win.”

Hiring likely remained subdued last month as many companies have sought to avoid expanding their workforces, though the job gains may be enough to bring down the unemployment rate.

December’s jobs report, to be released Friday, is likely to show that employers added a modest 55,000 jobs, economists forecast. That figure would be below November’s 64,000 but an improvement after the economy lost jobs in October. The unemployment rate is expected to slip to 4.5%, according to data provider FactSet, from a four-year high of 4.6% in November.

The figures will be closely watched on Wall Street and in Washington because they will be the first clean readings on the labor market in three months. The government didn’t issue a report in October because of the six-week government shutdown, and November’s data was distorted by the closure, which lasted until Nov. 12.

FILE - President Donald Trump dances as he walks off stage after speaking to House Republican lawmakers during their annual policy retreat, Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)