From Militarization to Military Enforcement: The U.S. Armed Forces and Immigration Control in the Second Trump Administration

I'm pleased to share one of my most recent articles: From Militarization to Military Enforcement: The U.S. Armed Forces and Immigration Control in the Second Trump Administration forthcoming in the Kentucky Law Journal. Here's the abstract:

The U.S. Armed Forces have taken an unprecedented role in civil immigration en-forcement during the second Trump Administration. Historically, civilian authorities have enforced immigration law, but, as with criminal law enforcement, the system has borrowed military practices and equipment—a trend often described as the “militarization” of immigration enforcement. The second Trump Administration, however, has decisively shifted from militarized immigration enforcement to the military enforcement of immigration. 

This Article begins by examining the ways in which civil immigration enforcement has been influenced by the U.S. Armed Forces. Next, it considers the ways in which the second Trump Administration has expanded military involvement in immigration enforcement. The last segments of this Article focus on two particular innovations of the second Trump Administration: (1) the expansion of U.S. military bases along the southern border, which has enabled direct military involvement in the apprehension and prosecution of migrant civilians, and (2) the assignment of U.S. military attorneys (Judge Advocates General) to serve as temporary immigration judges, thereby empowering servicemembers to adjudicate civilians’ civil immigration cases. 

The second Trump Administration’s approach represents a policy escalation that calls into question the relationship between the U.S. military and civil law enforcement.