logo
US military creates new military zone along border with Mexico

US military creates new military zone along border with Mexico

The Star02-05-2025

Texas National Guard soldiers walk near the U.S.-Mexico border wall, as seen from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, March 11, 2025. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has created a second military zone along the border with Mexico, adding an area in Texas where troops can temporarily detain migrants or trespassers after doing the same in New Mexico.
President Donald Trump launched an aggressive immigration enforcement campaign after taking office, increasing troops at the southern border and pledging to deport millions of immigrants in the United States illegally.
The Trump administration earlier this month designated a 60-foot-wide (18.3-meter-wide) strip along a base in New Mexico as a "National Defense Area."
Late on Thursday, the U.S. military said that it had designated a second area along the border as the "Texas National Defense Area."
U.S. Customs and Border Protection maintains jurisdiction over illegal border crossings in the area and troops would hand over migrants they detained to U.S. Border Patrol or other civilian law enforcement, according to the Defense Department.
Eighty-two migrants have been charged for crossing into the buffer area. So far, U.S. troops have not detained any and it has been carried out by CBP officials.
The buffer zone allows the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the U.S. military to suppress events like civil disorder.
At the start of Trump administration, it had ordered the Pentagon and Department of Homeland Security to recommend whether actions, including the Insurrection Act of 1807, would be needed to deal with migrants.
A U.S. official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told Reuters that U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth last week had recommended that at this time, the Insurrection Act was not needed.
The last time the Insurrection Act was invoked was during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Around 11,900 troops are currently deployed to the U.S. Southwest border where the number of migrants caught illegally crossing in March fell to the lowest level ever recorded, according to government data.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Andrew Hay; editing by Diane Craft)

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Hopes rise as US and China hold second day of trade talks
Hopes rise as US and China hold second day of trade talks

New Straits Times

time34 minutes ago

  • New Straits Times

Hopes rise as US and China hold second day of trade talks

LONDON: The United States and China began a second day of trade talks on Tuesday, seeking to shore up a shaky tariff truce in a bitter row deepened by export curbs. The gathering of key officials from the world's two biggest economies began Monday in London, after an earlier round of talks in Geneva last month. Stock markets wavered as investors hoped the talks will bring some much-needed calm on trading floors and ease tensions between the economic superpowers. A US Treasury spokesman told AFP on Tuesday the "talks resumed earlier this" morning. One of US President Donald Trump's top advisers said he expected "a big, strong handshake" at the end of the talks in the historic Lancaster House, operated by the UK foreign ministry. Trump told reporters at the White House on Monday: "We are doing well with China. China's not easy. "I'm only getting good reports." The agenda is expected to be dominated by exports of rare earth minerals used in a wide range of things including smartphones, electric vehicle batteries and green technology. "In Geneva, we had agreed to lower tariffs on them, and they had agreed to release the magnets and rare earths that we need throughout the economy," Trump's top economic adviser, Kevin Hassett, told CNBC on Monday. But even though Beijing was releasing some supplies, "it was going a lot slower than some companies believed was optimal", he added. Still, he said he expected "a big, strong handshake" at the end of the talks. "Our expectation is that after the handshake, any export controls from the US will be eased, and the rare earths will be released in volume," Hassett added. He also said the Trump administration might be willing to ease some recent curbs on tech exports. Tensions between Washington and Beijing have heightened since Trump took office in January, with both countries engaging in a tariffs war hiking duties on each other's exports to three figures -- an effective trade embargo. The Geneva pact to cool tensions temporarily brought new US tariffs on Chinese goods down from 145 per cent to 30 per cent, and Chinese countermeasures from 125 per cent to 10 per cent. But Trump recently said China had "totally violated" the deal. "Investors are willing to grab on to any positive trade headline right now, as this is keeping hopes of a rally alive," said Kathleen Brooks, research director at trading group XTB. Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at the Swissquote Bank, said that although there had been "no breakthrough" it seemed "the first day of the second round of negotiations reportedly went relatively well". "Rumours are circulating that the US may be willing to make concessions on tech exports in exchange for China easing restrictions on rare earth metal exports," she said. Rare earth shipments from China to the US have slowed since the tariff war was triggered by Trump's so-called "Liberation Day" announcements, according to Brooks. The US leader slapped sweeping levies of 10 per cent on friend and foe alike, and threatened steeper rates on dozens of economies. The tariffs have already had a sharp effect, with official figures from Beijing showing Chinese exports to the United States in May plunged by 12.7 per cent. China is also in talks with other trading partners -- including Japan and South Korea -- to try to build a united front to counter Trump's tariffs. Chinese leader Xi Jinping on Tuesday urged South Korea's new President Lee Jae-myung to work with Beijing to uphold free trade to ensure "the stability and smooth functioning of global and regional industrial and supply chains." "A healthy, stable, and continuously deepening China-South Korea relationship aligns with the trend of the times," Xi said in a phone call, according to the Xinhua news agency. Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng is heading the team in London, which included Commerce Minister Wang Wentao and China International Trade Representative Li Chenggang.

Kremlin says it has been ready to hand over bodies of Ukrainian war dead for 'several days'
Kremlin says it has been ready to hand over bodies of Ukrainian war dead for 'several days'

The Star

time2 hours ago

  • The Star

Kremlin says it has been ready to hand over bodies of Ukrainian war dead for 'several days'

FILE PHOTO: The Russian flag flies on the dome of the Kremlin Senate building behind Spasskaya Tower in Moscow, Russia June 2, 2025. REUTERS/Evgenia Novozhenina/File photo MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia has been ready to start handing over the corpses of Ukraine's war dead for several days with refrigerated trucks containing the first bodies parked near the border, but Kyiv is still discussing the details, the Kremlin said on Tuesday. The two sides agreed to repatriate the bodies of soldiers killed in the conflict during talks in Istanbul on June 2, which also resulted in an agreement to exchange prisoners of war, a process which got under way on Monday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Moscow of "trying to play some kind of dirty political and information game" around the issue of the exchanges. Russia has said it is ready to hand over the bodies of over 6,000 Ukrainian soldiers and receive any bodies of Russian soldiers which Kyiv is able to return. But Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky said on Saturday that the Russian side had shown up at the agreed exchange point with the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian dead soldiers only to find nobody from Ukraine to take them. Ukrainian officials responsible for the exchanges did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. Asked about the issue on Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia remained ready to return the bodies and was in talks with Kyiv on the subject, but did not yet know exactly how many bodies of Russian soldiers Ukraine was ready to hand over. "There is no final understanding. Contact is being made, numbers are being compared. As soon as there is a final understanding, then we hope this exchange will take place," said Peskov. "There is one indisputable fact here, which is that we have already been ready on the border for several days with those trailers that were mentioned to make the transfer to the Ukrainian side. This is a fact that everyone sees and knows." Russian state media has broadcast images of long white refrigerated trucks containing the bodies which are sealed in individual white bags and are parked up near the border. (Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Andrew Osborn; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)

South Korea appoints ex-trade chief Yeo Han-koo as new trade minister
South Korea appoints ex-trade chief Yeo Han-koo as new trade minister

The Star

time3 hours ago

  • The Star

South Korea appoints ex-trade chief Yeo Han-koo as new trade minister

SEOUL: South Korea appointed former chief trade envoy Yeo Han-koo (pic) as its top trade negotiator, the president's office said on Tuesday (June 10), as Asia's fourth largest economy prepares for negotiations with Washington to reduce the tariffs. The United States imposed 25% levies on South Korea on April 2, one of the highest tariffs for a US ally, though they have been suspended until early July. Cutting tariffs is a top policy priority for South Korea's new President Lee Jae-myung after a leadership vacuum in recent months helped delay talks between Seoul and Washington. The president also appointed statistics agency chief Lee Hyoung-il as first vice finance minister to lead the ministry until a finance minister is formally appointed, Lee's spokesperson Kang Yu-jung said. Sectoral tariffs have hurt South Korea's key industries including cars, aluminium and steel. Yeo was trade chief between August 2021 and early 2022 during left-leaning President Moon Jae-in's administration and was involved in Korea-US talks under the first Trump administration. While serving as commercial attache at the Korean Embassy in Washington, he was involved in amendment negotiations of the Korea-US Free Trade Agreement and Section 232 steel negotiations in 2017. For the past two years Yeo has been a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. - Reuters

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store