Military Land Labels Enable Migrant Prosecutions

The administration is converting stretches of borderland into 'national defense' or military property and then charging migrants with trespassing on those lands to keep them in federal criminal custody. Courts are being forced to decide whether these executive reclassifications and the resulting prosecutions are lawful, practical, or just a way to bypass immigration procedures. — If sustained, this tactic could normalize a legal pathway to criminalize migration, expand military involvement in border enforcement, and create new precedent about executive authority and prosecutorial discretion.