Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico have begun dismissing charges related to national security and military trespassing for immigrants accused of crossing the southern U.S. border into areas recently designated as military zones. The dismissals come as there is insufficient evidence to suggest that these immigrants were aware of the restricted status of the zones.
Since the end of April, federal prosecutors in New Mexico and western Texas have filed charges against approximately 400 immigrants for breaching national security protocols and entering restricted military land. This 60-foot strip of land has been newly classified as a national defense area. However, magistrate judges at a federal court in Las Cruces have dismissed military trespassing charges in at least 120 cases, although charges of illegal entry into the U.S. remain.
According to New Mexico’s U.S. attorney, warning signs have been prominently displayed across the New Mexico border near these militarized zones. However, Chief Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth highlighted that the mere presence of signs does not suffice as evidence that the accused were aware of these military zones, pointing out that there is no basis to conclude immigrants had seen the warnings. He further criticized the government’s “cut-and-paste approach” in its legal arguments across multiple cases, suggesting a standardized and insufficient method of legal presentation.
The designated national defense zones fall under the jurisdiction of U.S. Army commands located in Texas’s Fort Bliss and Arizona’s Fort Huachuca. Immigrants found guilty of these new national security violations may face a potential 18-month prison sentence in addition to the six-month sentence for illegal entry. The broader consequences for immigrants seeking legal status through separate federal immigration proceedings remain uncertain.
The Trump administration claims it has granted U.S. troops temporary authority to detain immigrants unlawfully entering the country, but no incidents of troops exercising such authority have been documented, with arrests being predominantly conducted by U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Public defense attorneys argue that trespassing charges are invalid without proof of the immigrants’ awareness of military restrictions and an intent to violate them intentionally.