Trump administration ‘national defense area’ challenged in NM

BY COLLEEN HEILD

JOURNAL INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

Volunteers who search for lost, missing or deceased migrants are stymied. Hunters and birdwatchers can’t readily enjoy their hobbies, and border advocacy groups have curtailed their work.

The Trump administration’s decision to turn at least 100,000 acres along the U.S.-New Mexico border into a restricted military zone has effectively increased potential penalties for those who cross illegally, but is also harming U.S. citizens, according to a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque on Thursday.

The plaintiffs, which include the New Mexico Wildlife Federation, are asking a federal judge to declare the government’s designation of the state’s so-called “national defense area” as unlawful.

“The goal here is to end the designation of the land at issue as a ‘national defense area’ and return it to the

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A sign warns against unauthorized entry into a militarized zone along the southern U.S. border in New Mexico in June 2025.

MORGAN LEE/ASSOCIATED PRESS

public for the uses it has long served,” said Albuquerque attorney Mark T. Baker, who represents three organizations that filed the case._“Our clients’ experiences provide just a few important examples of the problems the federal government created with this misadventure.”

Established in April 2025 to “seal” the southwestern U.S. border, New Mexico’s national defense area covers about 170 to 200 miles of southern border land in Hidalgo, Luna and Doña Ana counties.

The land is now considered an extension of Fort Huachuca Army Base in southern Arizona, and access to the civilian public is barred. Border areas in Texas, Arizona and California have similar zones in high-trafficked areas.

The designation has allowed the government to file novel trespassing charges against thousands of immigrants who enter the U.S. through those militarized zones. A conviction adds a potential prison sentence of 18 months to a possible six-month sentence for illegal entry.

Since the creation of the defense area in New Mexico, the U.S. Department of Justice has charged about 1,800 people with crimes related to their presence in the zone, the lawsuit states.

Up until 2025, the Defense Department used the designation only to temporarily secure the immediate perimeter of a_ “discrete emergency, such as a military aircraft crash,” the lawsuit states. That was the case in 1997, when an F-117 Nighthawk jet crashed during an air show in Baltimore, Maryland.

Now, the lawsuit states, “the administration has militarized wide swaths of public land in New Mexico. In doing so, the administration has significantly disrupted life along the U.S. southern border, barring New Mexico residents from accessing traditionally public land that was long used as part of everyday life and causing ongoing harm to organizations’ and individuals’ recreational, humanitarian and civic interests.”

The petition, by the federation, Battalion Search and Rescue, and Southern Border Communities Coalition, contends the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Army exceeded the agencies’ statutory authority in creating the national defense areas.

None of the agencies responded Friday to a request for comment about the lawsuit.

The groups contend the Interior Department lacked authority to transfer the border land to the Defense Department as an emergency withdrawal. Interior needed to find that the transfer would further the protection of environmental values,_“instead, Interior was explicit that the transfer was intended to further the administration’s immigration enforcement agenda,” the lawsuit states.

“No DOD regulations or guidance provides for the use of ‘national defense areas’ as a tool to extend military jurisdiction over large swaths of public land for a period of years for the purpose of allowing the military to conduct activities that would otherwise be prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act,” states the lawsuit. The act generally bars the use of federal military for domestic civilian law enforcement.

Wildlife Federation members, who include hunters, fishermen and outdoor enthusiasts, cannot engage in outdoor experiences like they did before the zone prevented their access.

Hunting access has been particularly impaired, and the ability to engage in successful hunts of deer, javelina, oryx, ibex and Barbary sheep has been disrupted.

Because of poor mapping and signage, federation members who have spent their entire lives in the area of the zone are unable to determine whether they are on military land, the lawsuit states. And that “causes a chilling effect on … members’ willingness to recreate anywhere in the vicinity of the (national defense area).”

The Army allows special access to hunt in the zone but requires people to first fill out an access badge application, pass a background check and provide personal information.

“Further, members must travel out of state to Fort Huachuca in Arizona to obtain the pass,” the lawsuit states. Some of the federation’s Hispanic members_“are understandably worried about traveling to a military base to undergo security screening given the administration’s increased aggressive and violent immigration enforcement actions.”

The mission of Battalion Search and Rescue, an Arizona-based nonprofit organization that has a New Mexico office, is also impacted, the lawsuit states.

The organization’s volunteers search for missing migrants who have disappeared in remote areas along the southwestern border. They typically walk the desert terrain searching for human remains, and on one shift, located three separate sites of human remains in six hours.

But the defense zone keeps the group from recovering remains there, and given past experience in the area, “there is a significant possibility that unrecovered human remains are currently within the NDA,” the lawsuit states.

Some of the Southern Border Communities Coalition’s member organizations report that they are unwilling to travel to that area of the state should they inadvertently trespass in the zone.

“Those members have no way to discern the borders of the restricted area under the control of the military,” the lawsuit states.

The only indicator the land is now under the DOD jurisdiction is typically relatively small signage, measuring about 12 by 18 inches, with text in English and Spanish.

Part of the New Mexico defense area includes parts of N.M. 9, a two-lane route connecting small towns like Animas and Hachita to the rest of New Mexico.

Colleen Heild is an investigative reporter for the Journal. Reach her at cheild@abqjournal.com.