A federal judge this week dismissed about 100 cases of individuals charged with trespassing on a newly created New Mexico military zone along the U.S. southern border, delivering the latest legal blow to the Trump administration's immigration crackdown.
New military zones in that state and Texas are part of the administration's effort to reduce border crossings by snaring migrants with new criminal charges. But Judge Gregory Wormuth, who threw out the cases, ruled that the federal government did not do enough to establish probable cause that migrants entering the country willfully trespassed onto the military property.
"Having concluded its probable cause review in this case, the court finds that the facts alleged in the complaint do not establish probable cause," Wormuth's order in one such case states. "As such, those charges will be dismissed without prejudice."
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Heather Small, the chief deputy of the U.S. District Court in New Mexico, confirmed to Military.com in an email Friday that there had been around 100 cases where dismissal orders had been filed.
Last month, President Donald Trump signed a memo transferring a narrow stretch of land along the southern border known as the Roosevelt Reservation to the U.S. military. So far, two military zones have been established, one roughly 170-mile stretch along the New Mexico border as an extension of Fort Huachuca, Arizona, and another roughly 60-mile stretch in Texas acting as an extension of Fort Bliss in El Paso.
Maj. Geoffrey Carmichael, a spokesman for Joint Task Force-Southern Border, told Military.com Friday that there have been upward of 170 individuals detected by troops and the Border Patrol in those national defense areas.
Notably, Customs and Border Patrol agents have been making the apprehensions and detentions, not service members. Troops cannot perform certain domestic law enforcement duties because it would be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The newly created zones, called national defense areas, were being used as a way to authorize military involvement in the administration's ongoing immigration crackdown as well as put harsher legal punishments on migrants for crossing into the U.S.
The New Mexico judge dismissed two charges: violation of security regulations and entering military, naval or Coast Guard property -- both misdemeanor charges that can carry hefty fines and anywhere from six months to a year in prison if convicted.
Typically, migrants have been charged with entering the country illegally, which could mean $5,000 in fines as well as six months in jail upon convictions.
Carlos Ibarra, a court-appointed defense attorney in New Mexico representing clients accused of trespassing in the defense area, told Military.com on Friday that migrants wouldn't necessarily have knowledge they were entering a military area.
"Those two military charges, they seem to require specific intent," Ibarra told Military.com in an interview. "These folks, they're just crossing over like they always have and, for many of them, there's no signage. I know the government has provided copies of photos of the signage, but not everyone will see them."
The Associated Press reported that roughly 400 such cases had been filed in criminal court in New Mexico as of the middle of this week.
As Military.com reported in an in-depth feature in March, legal experts, defense policy analysts and human rights advocates all raised concerns about the use of the federal land as a military speed trap to catch migrants entering the country.
Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the nonprofit Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, told Military.com in an emailed statement Friday that the judge's orders showcase the shortfalls in the administration's strategy to create the national defense areas.
"These dismissals underscore the fact that this military installation is a legal fiction," Goitein said. "If migrants were trespassing on a real, legitimate military base, they would know it. Indeed, the reason trespassing on a military base can lead to criminal charges is because military bases contain sensitive military equipment and information that must be protected. This particular installation contains little more than desert."
Related: Military Zone Along Border Means New -- Potentially Harsher -- Penalties for Newly Detained Migrants
