Military Zones Expand Migrant Prosecutions

When the White House designates border lands as ‘national defense areas,’ it lets military authority and a century‑old trespass law be used to criminally charge people crossing those lands. ProPublica shows that after such designations in 2025, prosecutions spiked, even where boundaries were ambiguous and migrants lacked notice. — This creates a new pathway for criminalizing migration that sidesteps ordinary immigration procedures and raises civil‑military and due‑process concerns nationwide.