President Trump’s latest order to hand the Pentagon control of federal land along the southern border reads like the fever dream of a late-night cable host. He’s calling it a “Military Mission for Sealing the Southern Border of the United States and Repelling Invasions.” I’d call it a mid-season plot twist in a bad reality series—except this one comes with soldiers, surveillance equipment, and enough constitutional questions to keep the Supreme Court busy until the next eclipse.
Let’s break this down before we salute and move on.
The land in question—known as the Roosevelt Reservation—is a 60-foot-wide stretch of federal property running through California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Teddy Roosevelt established it over a century ago to give the government a buffer zone at the border. Now, in 2025, it’s being rebranded as a “National Defense Area,” which is a polite way of saying: “The military’s in charge now.”
The White House says this is about sovereignty and security. The memo reads like we’re expecting Pancho Villa to return with a drone strike capability.
The president’s language is telling. “Repelling invasions.” “Territorial integrity.” These are not policy phrases; they are political theater. And here’s the rub: when you deploy the U.S. military to U.S. soil in peacetime—under a memo, no less—you’re not solving a crisis. You’re manufacturing one.
The irony is that border security has always been a serious, complicated issue—one that deserves steady policy, not saber-rattling. There are real problems at the border: trafficking, smuggling, and humanitarian breakdowns. But those problems are not fixed with a general and a backhoe. They’re fixed with smart immigration law, regional diplomacy, and resources for overwhelmed local agencies. Not photo ops with soldiers holding concertina wire.
And while Native American reservations are excluded from this order, let’s not pretend that proximity doesn’t matter. Tribes living near these areas now get to witness Humvees rumbling across lands they never ceded, all while federal agencies draw new lines in the sand. Again.
Now, I’m not naive. I’ve covered enough military and border patrol operations and watched enough campaign cycles to understand what’s happening here: this is red meat for the base, dropped right on the grill. But here’s the difference between political posturing and real leadership—one plays to fear, the other plans for the future.
This move doesn’t just challenge the balance between civilian and military roles—it blurs it. And it does so at a time when the country desperately needs clarity, not chaos.
I know some will say, “It’s about time we got serious at the border.” Maybe. But militarizing public lands and handing them over to the Department of Defense without a clear legal framework or congressional oversight? That’s not serious. That’s reckless.
And while the president may think he’s projecting strength, what he’s really projecting is insecurity—about policy, about control, and about the Constitution itself.
If we’re going to call ourselves a democracy, we ought to start acting like one. That means solving problems with laws, not rifles. And remembering that real strength isn’t shown by building fences—it’s shown by building trust.