Leave it to a former Biden official with the DEA to tell it like it is: “Politics aside, Trump is not [bleeping] around with this stuff.”
President Donald Trump ran on a promise to secure the southern border, and so far his track record of keeping big promises has been fairly spot-on: new tariffs to throttle China and promote investment in our industry and the process of needed government pruning by the Department of Government Efficiency being two of many key points. Yet the challenge of securing the southern border from the influx of both illegal aliens and illicit drugs isn’t dealt with as easily as setting tariff rates or hiring a business genius who knows the wunderkind youth to call for power IT services.
But the genius of Trump 47.0 is in the careful pre-planning so he could hit the ground running. Before he had even taken office — in fact, barely three weeks after he won the election — Trump was already getting the new Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to agree to work with him on stopping migration through Mexico. It was the establishment of that relationship that set up the cooperation Trump is now receiving in conducting surveillance of cartel strongholds across the border. According to the Associated Press in February, Sheinbaum was the one requesting the help.
Another piece of the puzzle was put in place this past week. Only those who reside close to the border or specialize in reading dusty law tomes would have heard of the Roosevelt Reservation, but that 60-foot-wide strip of land set aside immediately along the border from New Mexico to California is another linchpin in the Trump strategy. Recently, The Washington Post reacted with alarm to the perception that Trump is militarizing the Mexican border. Trump “issued a presidential memorandum saying that the ‘complexity of the current situation’ at the southern border requires the military to take a more active role there,” screeched the paper last week. “He ordered the military to take active control of federal lands there, explicitly mentioning the Roosevelt Reservation.”
The new presence of Stryker combat vehicles, which will be deployed along the Roosevelt Reservation, is already having a striking effect. “Ever since the Stryker came into play, we see more turn-backs than anything,” stated Sgt. 1st Class Carlos Zamora. Added Post reporter Dan Lamothe, “Such hardware typically is reserved for missions overseas. Under Trump, it is being used to track the movement of people and narcotics bound for the United States, monitor cartel activity, and send an unambiguous message that the status quo has changed.”
Most certainly, it has. There are now 6,600 troops in what’s known as Joint Task Force — Southern Border. That seems like a lot, but they’re spread over a land mass of more than 700 miles in length. Moreover, Lamothe assures us, “The vehicles have been configured without the machine guns they would carry in a war zone but can detect people as far as two miles away. Soldiers carry rifles and have the right to defend themselves if a dangerous situation emerges.”
Ed Morrissey of Hot Air opines that the buildup means it may soon be go-time for a targeted incursion across the border. “By leaking the existence of the scaled-up surveillance flights,” he says, “this could prompt the cartels to start moving its assets in anticipation of target selection by US forces. That movement would make those assets much more vulnerable and easier to pick off if US forces were prepared to select and hit targets in real time.” Cutting the number of people crossing the border also makes the job easier, as it’s not unknown for human smugglers and other cartel forces to engage the Border Patrol. According to Lamothe, at least five shooting incidents have occurred this past year.
Morrissey may be on target with his presumption. “According to a memorandum released by the White House, Secretaries of Defense, Interior, Agriculture, and Homeland Security will be directed to transfer the jurisdiction of federal land along the southern border to the Department of Defense,” writes Sarah Arnold at Townhall. “Trump said that the use of military action at the southern border is necessary because the U.S. is ‘under attack from a variety of threats.’ The order calls for a ‘phased’ implementation within 45 days, with potential expansion over time.”
She adds, “The new memorandum designates the area as a military zone, meaning any illegal alien crossing into the U.S. would be trespassing on a military installation — allowing active-duty troops to detain them until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive.” This avoids the sure screaming by the Left about violating the Posse Comitatus Act, although they likely will anyway.
As time goes on, we learn Trump was exactly right in his joint address to Congress: “The media and our friends in the Democrat Party kept saying, ‘We needed new legislation. We must have legislation to secure the border.’ But it turns out all we needed was a new president.” Now that we have a new sheriff in town, who is fearlessly demonstrating that law does “go ‘round here,” things are changing for the better.
