NMWF and Partners Challenge Unlawful Militarization of Southern Border
Albuquerque, N.M. — New Mexico Wildlife Federation, Battalion Search and Rescue, and Southern Border Communities Coalition filed a lawsuit today challenging the administration’s unlawful transformation of more than 100,000 acres of public land along the New Mexico-Mexico border into a military installation, allowing U.S. military personnel to engage in civilian immigration enforcement. Plaintiffs are represented by Democracy Forward and Peifer, Hanson, Mullins & Baker.
The lawsuit challenges actions by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI), U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), and U.S. Army that transferred jurisdiction over the public land to the military and designated it a “national defense area.” According to the complaint, the administration has used that designation to restrict public access and give military personnel expanded authority to detain people on land that, until last year, was open to the public for recreational and civic uses.
So-called “national defense areas” are not authorized by statute. DoD has historically designated such areas as temporary, limited zones in response to discrete emergencies, such as military aircraft crashes. The lawsuit alleges that the administration lacks authorization to use that concept to convert vast stretches of public land into a military installation to circumvent longstanding restrictions on military participation in civilian law enforcement. The complaint further alleges that DOI unlawfully used emergency authority to bypass the ordinary process for withdrawing public lands to conduct immigration enforcement, even though that emergency authority is only permitted to preserve environmental and other natural-resource values.
The consequences are already being felt by people and organizations across the region. New Mexico Wildlife Federation members have lost access to lands they have long used to hunt, hike, and birdwatch, as well as to monitor public-land management. Battalion Search and Rescue, an all-volunteer humanitarian organization, has been prevented from searching areas where migrants have died or gone missing, jeopardizing efforts to locate human remains, identify the deceased, and give families answers. Southern Border Communities Coalition members have had their work and daily lives disrupted and are prevented from, among other things, engaging in community organizing activities and participating in religious traditions.
The boundaries of the military zone are also unclear on the ground. According to the complaint, people have unknowingly entered the national defense area because of inadequate signage and a lack of publicly accessible information about its boundaries. The U.S. Department of Justice has nevertheless charged approximately 1,800 people with crimes related to entering the area, even as courts have repeatedly raised questions about the government’s ability to establish where the military zone actually begins and ends.
“This lawsuit is an extension of the New Mexico Wildlife Federation’s traditional work to preserve public access to public lands,” said Jesse Deubel, executive director of the NMWF. “Since our organization’s founding more than a century ago, we have worked to ensure that all New Mexicans, regardless of personal wealth or background, have equal access to hunt, fish, and recreate on public lands in our state. We and our partner organizations aim to see the administration held to a higher standard, and we mean to establish that it must not only protect our borders, but also respect our laws, our environment and our traditions of using public lands.”
“In just three years, a handful of dedicated volunteers, searching roughly once a month across southern Arizona and New Mexico, have located more than 100 death sites. Imagine how many more people could be found if we had the access, resources, and support to search systematically. Instead, we’re being locked out,” said James R. Holeman, founder of Battalion Search and Rescue. “For more than 30 years, U.S. border enforcement policies have deliberately pushed vulnerable people into remote and ‘hostile terrain.’ The government knew the deadly consequences. Vast stretches of our borderlands are already virtually inaccessible to humanitarian searchers, including military installations, wildlife refuges, national parks, and tribal lands. Now the government is closing off even more territory. We don’t find weapons or drugs. We find Bibles, prayer cards, love notes, and the belongings of people simply trying to survive. There is no meaningful, systematic government effort to search for the missing and the dead. They don’t search, and now they’re preventing us from searching.”
“We need to revitalize, not militarize, border communities,” said Lilian Serrano, Director of the Southern Border Communities Coalition. “The use of the U.S. military against civilians is unacceptable. Our home is not a military zone. We reject any attempts to normalize military deployment or so-called ‘national defense areas’ in our communities. Our borderlands are a place of encounter where everyone’s dignity and human rights should be respected.”
“Public lands do not become military installations simply because the president says so, and the military cannot be handed sweeping new authority to police civilians by drawing a line around land that belonged to the public,” said Brian Netter, Legal Director at Democracy Forward. “What the Trump-Vance administration has done in New Mexico is an extraordinary abuse of power with devastating consequences for the people who live, work, worship, recreate, and carry out lifesaving humanitarian work along the border. Our Constitution and laws impose clear limits on the use of the military for civilian law enforcement for a reason. We are proud to represent our clients in seeking to stop this unlawful militarization of their communities and restore these public lands to the people.”
“The administration botched their poorly-thought-out and poorly executed misuse of ‘National Defense Areas’ from the start. They are violating the law in a massive waste of resources that should be dedicated to fighting violent crime and actually making New Mexicans safer,” said Mark Baker, from Peifer, Hanson, Mullins & Baker P.A.
The lawsuit alleges that DOI had no authority to use an emergency public-land withdrawal to transfer land to DoD, and that DoD exceeded its authority by creating the New Mexico “national defense area.” The lawsuit also challenges the administration’s use of funds appropriated through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act to operate and maintain the military zone, alleging that the four-year appropriation violates the Constitution’s Army Clause, which limits Army appropriations to two-year terms.
The plaintiffs are asking the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico to vacate the DOI and DoD orders that transferred and designated the land as a national defense area, block the administration from continuing to implement the New Mexico military zone, and prohibit the Army from spending additional challenged funds to operate or maintain it.
The case is New Mexico Wildlife Federation v. Department of Interior. The legal team at Democracy Forward includes Gregory Cumming, Lesley Farby, and Brian Netter.
Read the filing here.
