The Trump Administration’s “Disturbing” New Legal Strategy to Prosecute Border Crossers Is Taxing Courts and Testing the Law

The Trump administration has charged at least 4,700 immigrants with trespassing on military property after Trump ordered more than 200 miles of borderland transferred to the military as "national defense areas" last April. More than 90% of these cases have been resolved, with about 60% of the trespass charges dropped or dismissed, as at least nine judges in West Texas and New Mexico found the prosecutions legally deficient because defendants didn't know they were crossing military land. Attorney General Pam Bondi has issued a directive mandating "zealous advocacy" of the administration's priorities, forcing prosecutors to continue filing charges despite judicial criticism. Federal courts are experiencing a surge of immigration-related litigation, with frustrated judges noting that defendants often can't be located on maps showing military zone boundaries and were sometimes arrested more than 20 miles from warning signs. Prosecutors have responded to dismissed cases by refiling them using "informations" — reviving more than 1,600 military trespass cases that judges had already deemed unsupported.