The Trump administration is expanding an effort to bring the border under military control into Texas, a move that could impact the state’s few stretches of federally-owned border land in Big Bend National Park and a complex of South Texas wildlife refuges.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a press briefing Tuesday that the administration would add more than 90 miles in Texas to a presidential directive authorizing the Defense Department to take control of land operated by other agencies in the name of border security “in the coming weeks.”
The administration’s latest move to militarize the southern border stems from a memo President Trump signed Friday that allows the Pentagon to turn public land into “National Defense Areas.” The directive enables the military to do things like build border walls and install border security surveillance technology on those lands.
Administration officials have declined to provide the exact location of the Texas land in question. The move could implicate some of the state’s most remote stretches of land along the Rio Grande in Big Bend and scattered segments of federal riverfront land that make up the South Texas National Wildlife Refuge Complex.
Leavitt said Tuesday the administration is seeking to “obtain complete operational control” of U.S. borders.
“This National Defense Area will enhance our ability to detect, interdict and prosecute the illegal aliens, criminal gangs and terrorists who were able to invade our country without consequence for the past 4 years under the Biden administration,” she said.
What land will be affected?
In Texas, the vast majority of land along the southern border is privately owned.
But several areas near the border are controlled by the federal government and could be implicated by this new move.
The southern boundary of Big Bend National Park stretches about 118 miles along the river. In South Texas, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service operates multiple wildlife refuges scattered across different segments along the Rio Grande. And near Del Rio, the federal government also has jurisdiction over small segments of border land lining the riverfront boundary of Amistad National Recreation Area.
Asked for details on what Texas land would be incorporated into the plan, the Interior Department said the White House press secretary “addressed these questions thoroughly from the podium” on Tuesday.
“The Department remains committed to protecting public lands while supporting interagency efforts that advance national security and public safety,” the department said in a statement. “We have nothing further to add.”
The National Park Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service did not answer questions about the plan. Gov. Greg Abbott’s office referred questions about the plan to various federal agencies.
Neither the state nor federal government has released a map or other detailed layout of the Texas land where the military buildup will take place.
The plan was initially focused on the Roosevelt Reservation. This narrow strip of land that spans the southern border in California, Arizona and New Mexico that was established by President Theodore Roosevelt for border security purposes in the early 1990s.
Troop deployment continues in the Big Bend
The plan to expand military control over parts of the southern border comes amid an ongoing deployment of about 500 soldiers to the Big Bend region of Texas.
Army officials have said in recent weeks the troops are operating in a support capacity for Border Patrol agents and will not have authority to arrest or detain people suspected of being in the country without legal status.
Maj. Jared Stefani, who is leading the troop battalion in the region, said in a recent interview that troops operating inside Big Bend National Park are coordinating their movements with National Park Service staff, based on where Border Patrol wants troops to set up their surveillance and monitoring capabilities.
“We’ve been working with them to ensure that we comply to all environmental as well as archeological studies and assessments,” he told Marfa Public Radio on April 8.
Stefani said when the Border Patrol identifies an area within the park where it wants the Army to set up, the battalion then communicates that plan to park staff.
“A lot of my infantrymen are outdoorsmen, they want to leave the national park as they found it,” Stefani said last week.
Big Bend National Park spokesperson Tom VandenBerg told Marfa Public Radio earlier this month the park is “actively monitoring the impact of border activities on park resources, visitors, and employees.”
VandenBerg said the park does not expect the deployment to impact park operations or visitor services.Critics have raised concerns about how the deployment of soldiers in heavily armored combat vehicles will impact the park itself and visitors’ experiences.
“Communities and ecosystems will suffer irreversible harm if our borderlands become battlefields as the administration attempts to advance a false narrative that militarizing our parks is somehow necessary for national security,” Sherman Neal II, a military veteran with the environmental advocacy group Sierra Club, said in a statement Wednesday.
In an interview before this week’s comments from the White House, former Big Bend National Park Superintendent Bob Krumenaker described the local troop deployment as “overkill.” He said while the Army could be helpful in some cases, the current deployment seems “well in excess” of what’s needed.
“There are many, many other areas of the border that are much more challenging to control than those in the Big Bend Sector and Big Bend National Park,” Krumenaker said.
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