‘They Want to Have a Police State’: Trump’s Rio Grande Military Zone
With Strykers and soldiers the Trump administration implemented its third National Defense Area in the Rio Grande Valley in June, alarming local groups.
On his first day back in office, President Trump condemned what he called the “vast amount of people” crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. This, he said, was causing “widespread chaos” and threatening the country’s very sovereignty. He then signed an executive order from the Oval Office, declaring a national emergency and granting power to the Department of Defense to take “all appropriate action” to obtain “full operational control” of the border.
Never mind that Trump’s first month followed a yearlong trend of some of the lowest numbers of southwest border crossings, according to data released by Customs and Border Protection (CBP). By the time Trump took office, encounters had reached their lowest levels in 25 years. March saw the lowest numbers in recorded history. The trend was owing entirely to a deal between President Biden and Mexico a year earlier to move migrants south before they could reach the U.S. border, an arrangement that has surfaced its own set of human rights concerns.
Still, in June, the U.S. Air Force assumed control of a more than 250-mile stretch along the Rio Grande in South Texas. This took place under another executive order from April that launched a new mission: “repelling the invasion” and “sealing” the U.S. southern border, by creating new military zones known as National Defense Areas (NDA). Four of these military zones have been established so far by the Department of Defense, in New Mexico, west Texas, and Arizona.
The military zone in the Rio Grande Valley, which is almost exclusively made up of private land, was created by taking over land that the International Boundary and Water Commission (IBWC), a federal agency, must access as part of its responsibility to manage water in the region.
Michelle Serrano, codirector of Voces Unidas RGV, said she was unsurprised by the government’s continuing rhetoric portraying the border as a dangerous place.
“The whole concept of the border being under invasion or in crisis is a narrative that has long been floated by the conservative right,” said Serrano. “It’s not true. It’s calm. There is no invasion. But then seeing the military Strykers arrive was shocking. It felt like we were in a war zone.”
In July, the Pentagon confirmed that at least 8,500 military personnel are now guarding these military zones, along with 4,200 National Guard members working under the Texas-led border security mission Operation Lonestar. An infantry regiment of U.S. soldiers began operations in Rio Grande City in June and brought Stryker armored vehicles along with them.
In May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas convicted at least 120 undocumented migrants who pleaded guilty to entering the National Defense Area near Fort Hancock in El Paso County. But that same month, a federal magistrate judge dismissed the same charges for 100 people who had been arrested for trespassing into the military zone in New Mexico, along with 300 others. Judge Gregory B. Wormuth said the government could not show that the migrants actually knew they were trespassing.
The signs warn that “all persons and vehicles entering herein may be detained and searched. Photographing or making notes, drawings, maps, or graphic representations of the area or its activities is prohibited unless specifically authorized by the Commander.” The government has not officially stated how many of these signs have been put up in the Rio Grande Valley so far, but Reuters reported in May that 1,300 had been placed at military zones across the U.S.-Mexico border. Boaters on the Rio Grande told Border Report that the signs were impossible to read from the water.
Serrano says the signs reflect a deeper harm. “The first reason why they don’t want us to document the spatial area is specifically because they don’t want people to feel comfortable. They want people to feel like they’re in the wrong place,” said Serrano, referring to the new prohibition on creating images of the river. “It started off quite simply enough with the Bush border wall, but it has culminated into this giant mechanism of control and surveillance that is undermining our free will, our freedom, and our general well-being.”
A recent photo release from the Department of Defense shows U.S. service members at the border taking part in activities ranging from training for handling “simulated casualties” to welding materials as part of border wall construction. One photo (below) shows an MQ-1C Gray Eagle drone being “prepared for deployment” about 14 miles north of the border at Fort Huachuca’s Libby Army Airfield in Arizona. The MQ-1C was one of the drones originally designed for use in the Middle East in the early 2010s. Its manufacturer, General Atomics Aeronautical, describes the drone as a “next generation tactical solution” for both reconnaissance and “attack operations.”
While the nearest army airfield to the Rio Grande Valley, Robert Gray Army Airfield Base Operations north of Austin, is about 300 miles away, the Gray Eagle’s specs list its cruise range at almost 3,000 miles. That means it can fly from Libby Army Airfield to Brownsville, a flight of about 1,000 miles one way along the border.
Elsa Hull has lived on the banks of the Rio Grande for nearly 30 years, and for much of that time she has conducted water-quality tests along a 300-mile stretch of the Rio Grande for a state agency. In 2019, during Trump’s first term, she was part of a lawsuit brought by border landowners challenging Trump’s plans to erect a wall on their private property.
Hull, whose San Ygnacio home in Zapata County is just 200 yards from the river, said she and her children have camped on its banks and kayaked in its waters countless times. “Every part of my life is tied up with this river,” said Hull. “My concern is, are they going to keep moving that NDA up this way through Starr County into Zapata?” The land Hull lives on lies near the IBWC-managed land that surrounds Falcon Lake. Her fear is that the DOD may create a military zone there in the same way it has used IBWC land to do so in neighboring Starr County.
“The border is nothing like what they’re describing,” Hull said, “but they are putting forth a false narrative to support their ideas and what they want to do. They want to remain in power. They want control, and they want to have a police state.”
Hull said she has not yet come across U.S. military personnel in the county since Trump took office but has seen the previously retired surveillance blimps, known as aerostats, flying once again over the skies of the city of Zapata. The blimps are operated by the Department of Homeland Security.
Serrano, whose organization offers in-person events in the Rio Grande Valley that facilitate “healing justice” through practices like meditation and prayer, says the military zones are part of a larger pattern of state control that has alienated the region’s residents.
“They want to make us feel like we’re invaders in our own home, which is incorrect. We’re dealing with constant raids right now. We’re dealing with forced kidnappings of people right now. But we should still be sharing our hopes, our dreams, for our futures,” said Serrano, who highlighted the importance of social support in the current political climate. “We just want people to be able to imagine a future where everybody is liberated and where everybody can have the resources that they need to live a just and happy life.”
This is an excellent, informative piece, Pablo. Thank you
All of this is on Chump. He is bypassing Congress and doing all these stupid things by Executive Order. He has to go. Midterms, baby. Get the House back and we can stop him.