The Trump administration’s plan to transfer federal land along the southern border to the U.S. military includes lands in New Mexico that extend well beyond the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot strip of land along much of the border, signaling to conservationists that additional public lands in Arizona are also vulnerable to Army takeover.
That could mean parts of Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge, Coronado National Forest and Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument could become a staging area for active-duty soldiers and equipment such as armored vehicles that have been deployed to Fort Huachuca as part of the military mission at the U.S.- Mexico border, environmentalists say.
A U.S. Bureau of Land Management map, obtained by the Arizona Daily Star, shows the “emergency withdrawal area” to be transferred to military control, which extends 2 to 3.5 miles from New Mexico’s international border, except in designated wilderness study areas.
The BLM confirmed the authenticity of the map, but could not say whether plans exist for a similarly expanded military footprint in Arizona, too.
“I can confirm that the map is ours and accurate,” said Brian Hires, D.C.-based spokesman for the BLM, in a Thursday email. “We are unaware of any additional maps involving Arizona.”
The language in an April 11 presidential memo on the military takeover of land at the border “leaves a lot of room for taking over federal land in general,” not only within the Roosevelt Reservation, said Russ McSpadden, southwest conservation advocate at the nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson.
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Scott M. Naumann, military commander of the Joint Task Force Southern Border, takes off in a Blackhawk helicopter from Fort Huachuca on April 3. The Trump administration’s plan to transfer federal land along the southern border to the U.S. military includes lands in New Mexico that extend well beyond the Roosevelt Reservation, a 60-foot strip of land along much of the border, signaling to conservationists that additional public lands in Arizona may also be subject to Army takeover.
Federal oversight of fragile lands in Arizona is “the Achilles heel of our incredible biodiversity here,” he said. “We have so much protected land along the border. Sadly, it’s become low-hanging fruit for the Trump administration.”
The Department of Defense declined to comment when asked if Arizona lands north of the Roosevelt Reservation could also be taken over by the Army.
“At this time we have nothing further to announce regarding federal lands transferring to DoD administrative jurisdiction,” said Army Major Jennifer L. Staton, Defense Department spokesperson, in a Thursday email to the Star.
In New Mexico, more than 109,000 acres of federal lands have been transferred to the Army for a three-year period, according to a Department of Interior statement about Secretary Doug Burgum’s Tuesday visit to New Mexico, announcing the “emergency withdrawal” of those lands.
“This action is intended to safeguard sensitive natural and cultural resources in the region while enabling the Department of the Army to support U.S. Border Patrol operations in securing the border and preventing illegal immigration,” the Interior Department release said.
The release acknowledged that some of the land transferred to the Army is “essential to the livelihoods of communities in that area. The Bureau of Land Management will work with the Department of the Army to ensure that some uses will continue to support local grazing and mining.”
With the bulk of federal land in southern New Mexico under a single agency’s management, it makes sense that New Mexico would be the starting point for establishing an expanded military presence, said Myles Traphagen, borderlands program coordinator for the Wildlands Network.
“In the borderlands of New Mexico it’s very easy because the land is 80-plus percent dominated by BLM land,” he said. In Arizona, “it’s a little bit more complex. ... You have a larger organizational task of implementing this and getting everybody to sign off on it.”
In Arizona, federal lands abutting the Roosevelt Reservation are managed by various agencies, including the BLM, U.S. Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Park Service, he said.
Land management agencies did not answer the Star’s questions about whether Arizona public lands north of the buffer zone could be transferred to the Army, too.
“In regard to all your questions: We have no information available at this time,” Brent Lawrence, FWS spokesman for the Southwest region, wrote in a Friday email.
The Forest Service did not respond to the Star’s query, and the National Park Service emailed a response that did not address the question.
“The Department remains committed to protecting public lands while supporting interagency efforts that advance national security and public safety. We have nothing further to add,” an unsigned email from NPS said.
Border militarization has been ongoing for years, exemplified by concertina wire along the border in Nogales, heightened surveillance systems and lighting, and helicopters overhead, Traphagen said. But military occupation is another story, he said.
“It’s already militarized from a functional perspective,” he said. But now, “border militarization is real. ... I think there’s gonna be a lot of people that live in border communities that are going to feel the increased presence of border militarization, but this time it’s literal.”
Presidential memo
On April 11, President Donald Trump issued a presidential memorandum giving the Defense Department jurisdiction over the public lands along the border, “including the Roosevelt Reservation,” the memo read, suggesting additional federal lands could be transferred. Native American reservations and private land are excluded.
The Roosevelt Reservation extends from New Mexico to California. For the next 45 days, the Defense Department will test taking control of the Roosevelt Reservation starting east of Fort Huachuca and through New Mexico before expanding to other states, the Associated Press reported.
Military takeover could extend miles north of border, conservationists warn
A U.S. Army soldier assigned to 4th Infantry Division throws rope over a CH-47 Chinook last month at Fort Huachuca. The soldiers’ work along the U.S.- Mexico border is to carry out President Donald Trump’s executive orders “on protecting the territorial integrity of the U.S.,” the Department of Defense says. DOD blurred the ID badges in this photo for security reasons.
The newly created “national defense area” at the border will be considered part of Fort Huachuca, the headquarters for the military’s southern-border operation.
The White House also announced Tuesday at least 90 miles of land at the Texas border will be placed under military control, too. About 7,000 Army soldiers have already been deployed to the border region, in addition to 4,600 National Guard under state control.
McSpadden of the Center for Biological Diversity called the memorandum “dangerous,” signaling “a sweeping escalation of military activity along the border, giving the Pentagon control of public lands, a lot of which were set aside to protect biodiversity and cultural resources.”
The Trump administration’s plan to turn the Roosevelt Reservation into a satellite military base would allow active-duty soldiers to detain civilians, including migrants entering the U.S., for “trespassing” on a military base, officials say.
Experts say that’s an effort to skirt the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from conducting civilian law enforcement.
Civilian encounters expected
The memo gives the secretary of Defense the power to determine “military activities that are reasonably necessary and appropriate to accomplish the mission” in Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order clarifying the military role at the border.
The memo’s broad language raises red flags for civil rights advocates, including the American Civil Liberties Union.
In border cities such as Nogales, and other “thriving” border communities, heightened militarization could put civilians at risk of encounters with active-duty soldiers, Hina Shamsi, ACLU National Security Project director, wrote in a Wednesday commentary.
About 19 million people live in the southern border region and are already subjected to heightened surveillance, aggressive federal policing and Border Patrol checkpoints, he wrote.
“People in these areas could now face federal prosecution for trespassing if they unintentionally walk or drive onto a designated ‘national defense area,’” Shamsi said. “Given the numerous documented cases of excessive use of force by Border Patrol agents, we are deeply concerned about the potentially dangerous consequences of adding more armed troops to border communities, in an environment that military personnel may not be trained for.”
Erick Meza, borderlands coordinator for the Sierra Club, said he’s especially concerned about the memo’s language that allows for excluding people from public lands, which could mean no accountability or oversight of border-wall construction in sensitive areas, such as the San Rafael Valley.
Federal land in New Mexico transferred to defense department
A Bureau of Land Management map shows the "emergency withdrawal area" in New Mexico that will be transferred to the Department of Defense as part of the military mission at the southern border. The withdrawal area extends two or 3.5 miles, depending on the location, from New Mexico's international border, a BLM spokesman confirmed. That's much further into the state than the 60-foot Roosevelt Reservation, a federal strip of federal land along the border in New Mexico, Arizona and California.
CBP recently confirmed it will construct nearly 25 miles of border wall through the valley, a hotspot of biodiversity, one of the largest remaining spans of grassland in the region and one of the best wilderness corridors for jaguars and ocelots, conservationists say.
“They’ll have the ability to limit access to these public lands,” Meza said. “We’re afraid the military will be setting up there to prevent access for monitoring. We want to make sure to keep the government accountable for the environmental destruction the border wall will cause. But if we don’t have access to document these things, then it’s gonna be much harder.”
And if soldiers are detaining people on federal lands transferred to the military, that could mean large detention tents on fragile wilderness lands, as well as bright lights that are highly disruptive to nocturnal wildlife, Meza said.
Lack of access to federal lands is also a disservice to people living in the region who find peace and recreation in the beautiful landscapes near the border, he said.
“Communities along the borders have used these lands to find peace, find a way to disconnect. Now they’re in danger of showing up to these places they’ve always gone, and finding themselves in a militarized zone with people carrying big guns,” he said.
‘Emergency’ declaration
The military takeover of borderlands comes after Trump declared a “national emergency” at the southern border, despite record-low migrant apprehensions, which have been declining rapidly since June 2024, when then-President Joe Biden implemented controversial restrictions on asylum access.
Since Trump was inaugurated, migrant apprehensions have dropped even further. In March, border agents arrested 1,068 migrants in the Tucson Sector, a 97% decrease from March 2024, according to the latest data from U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Trump’s military occupation of the borderlands is “political theater,” McSpadden said, “calling in the troops for a massive invasion that isn’t actually happening.”
The southern border operation has already claimed two lives: Two Marines, Lance Cpl. Albert A. Aguilera, 22, and Lance Cpl. Marcelino M. Gamino, 28, were killed in an April 15 vehicle accident near Santa Teresa, New Mexico, “while supporting Joint Task Force Southern Border operations,” according to an Army news release. A third Marine is hospitalized in critical condition.
In the remote border area east of Sásabe, Arizona, humanitarian volunteers are still encountering two to five migrants per week, mostly asylum seekers looking to surrender to border agents, said Charles Cameron, a volunteer with the Green Valley-Sahuarita Samaritans.
It’s a dramatic decline from the hundreds of daily arrivals there in late 2023, but for those individuals, the presence of the aid workers can be life-saving, Cameron said. Border agents used to rarely patrol that area and have relied on volunteers’ reports of migrant arrivals.
If migrants arriving there walked east instead of west, they’d face an impossible trek into a mountainous region, he said.
“We still are consumed with the thought that people will get up and walk in the wrong direction,” he said. “That can be fatal. ... If we’re not gonna be out there, we hope that either the military or the Border Patrol, or somebody, provides a regular presence out there.”
Volunteers aren’t sure whether they’ll be permitted to continue their humanitarian work at the border, or whether they could be detained themselves by the military.
“Unless they tell us we can’t go out there, we’ll continue to go out because it’s just another set of eyes and communication devices that can aid folks in need,” Cameron said.
With how quiet it’s been, soldiers deployed to the border will have little to do, said Cameron, a seven-year veteran of the Army National Guard.
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Scott M. Naumann, right, military commander of the Joint Task Force Southern Border, walks to a Blackhawk helicopter at Fort Huachuca, for a tour of the US-Mexico border, earlier this month.
“As a veteran I can tell you soldiers are very familiar with the concept of boredom,” he said. But “this mission may break all previous records.”
Landowners’ perspective
Southern Arizona rancher Jim Chilton, a fifth-generation rancher, said he welcomes the presence of the military, even on his own land, south of Arivaca and east of Nogales. He said he’s already encountered two trucks carrying military personnel near his property over the last week.
“I love it. Anything we can do to seal the border I’m absolutely for,” Chilton said.
On Wednesday, Border Patrol agents asked Chilton if he would open a gate on his 50,000-acre property, which abuts 5.5 miles of the Roosevelt Reservation at the border, to allow quicker access to the place where the border wall ends, and Chilton agreed, he said. The agents said they were looking at closing a five- to six-mile gap in the border wall, starting at the end of the wall east of Sásabe and stretching east toward Nogales, Chilton said.
Chilton said that in April 2024 alone, more than 5,000 asylum seekers entered Arizona just south of his property, seeking to surrender to border agents. But hardly anyone is crossing lately, he said.
Chilton said he supports creating more pathways for migrants to enter the U.S. legally, to double or triple the number of legal immigrants the U.S. accepts, after vetting.
“Immigrants are wonderful. This nation was built on immigrants, but everything needs to be legal,” he said Thursday. “I suggest, instead of getting in 1 million people a year legally, why not 2 (million)?”
Landowner Melissa Owen has a 640-acre ranch a few miles north of Sásabe. Owen said resistance to the border-militarization effort — which she says has been ongoing for years — feels “futile.” She said she doesn’t know whether the military takeover will directly impact her or lands near her, but she opposes the escalation.
“There’s been a militarized presence south of us for quite a while,” she said. “I’m not sure how worried I should be. I’m not sure anything is going to change. What bothers me the most is the ecological damage that is being done, and a lot of that is irreparable. When you bulldoze a road along a 60-foot barrier along the border, it’s not going to come back. This saddens me, more than frightens me.”
Chilton said he has empathy for migrants and has installed dozens of drinking fountains on the wells throughout his property. He praised the work of migrant-aid groups like the Samaritans who provide first aid, food and water to people facing dehydration and other risks.
Of the migrants trying to evade detection, he said, “I don’t like them, but nevertheless I don’t want them dying on my ranch.”
Cameron of the Samaritans emphasized that Trump’s efforts to fortify the border do nothing to address the root causes fueling a global increase in migration, nor do they reduce the number of displaced people worldwide.
“They have effectively closed down the border but from our perspective, they have done nothing to reduce the need or the pressure for asylum seekers,” he said. “There are just as many asylum seekers as there were before; it’s just we’ve put a kink in the hose.”
National Guard, soldiers work border in Nogales, Sonora
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