{"id":5400,"date":"2026-03-17T09:33:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/?p=5400"},"modified":"2026-03-17T09:33:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T04:03:16","slug":"big-news-trumps-dirty-law-to-prosecute-immigrants-and-tax-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/big-news-trumps-dirty-law-to-prosecute-immigrants-and-tax-courts\/5400\/","title":{"rendered":"[BIG NEWS] Trump\u2019s dirty law to prosecute immigrants and tax courts!"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a move that has stunned legal scholars, overwhelmed federal courts and ignited one of the most consequential constitutional debates in modern American immigration policy, the administration of Donald Trump<\/span><\/span> has deployed an obscure early twentieth century national security statute to prosecute migrants accused of illegally crossing the United States border through newly designated military controlled zones. The strategy, described by multiple judges and legal experts as legally fragile and institutionally disruptive, has resulted in thousands of additional criminal charges against migrants who were already facing prosecution for unlawful entry under federal immigration law. The policy has triggered widespread litigation, judicial frustration and accusations that the executive branch is testing the limits of long standing criminal law principles in pursuit of immigration deterrence.<\/p>\n

The controversy crystallised around the case of Jose Omar Flores Penaloza, a migrant who admitted that he had entered the United States unlawfully and was prepared to accept deportation. His legal counsel indicated that he was willing to plead guilty to the standard charge of illegal entry, an offence governed primarily by the provisions of Immigration and Nationality Act<\/span><\/span> and related criminal enforcement provisions under 8 U.S.C. \u00a7 1325<\/span><\/span>. Yet federal prosecutors insisted on pursuing an additional charge that Flores Penaloza had never encountered before. Because he had allegedly crossed the border through territory recently designated as a national defence area under military authority, prosecutors accused him of trespassing on military property in violation of federal statutes originally enacted in the early twentieth century to prevent espionage and sabotage near military installations. The statute at the centre of the prosecution dates to 1909 and was originally intended to prevent spies from infiltrating United States arsenals and strategic defence sites. The law is codified today within the national defence provisions of the United States criminal code and historically has been applied in cases involving deliberate intrusion into restricted military installations. The Trump administration\u2019s reinterpretation effectively expands the law\u2019s reach to migrants who cross the southern border through terrain that has been administratively transferred to military jurisdiction.<\/p>\n

Flores Penaloza contested the charge, arguing that he had no knowledge that the land he crossed constituted military property or that he had entered a national defence area. The dispute over knowledge became central to the case because criminal liability in American law generally requires proof of mens rea, the Latin legal principle referring to a guilty mind or the defendant\u2019s awareness that their conduct constitutes an unlawful act. Without such knowledge, courts traditionally hesitate to impose criminal punishment, particularly where national security implications are alleged.<\/p>\n

Flores Penaloza therefore remained in detention in a New Mexico jail while awaiting trial. His situation quickly became emblematic of a broader wave of prosecutions emerging across federal courts in the border region. Approximately one year into the second Trump administration, the federal judiciary has been inundated with immigration related litigation including a record number of habeas corpus petitions filed by detainees claiming unlawful detention. Habeas corpus, a foundational safeguard embedded within both Anglo American legal tradition and the United States Constitution, allows prisoners to challenge the legality of their confinement before a court. The pressure placed upon federal courts has been visible in multiple jurisdictions. In Minnesota, a federal judge recently demanded to know why detainees whom he had ordered released remained in custody. In a moment that revealed the institutional strain within the system, a government attorney responded bluntly that the system itself was dysfunctional and that the work had become intolerable. Investigations conducted by ProPublica and The Texas Tribune have revealed that a central driver of this courtroom congestion is the administration\u2019s decision to layer military trespass charges on top of standard immigration prosecutions. Since April of the previous year, at least four thousand seven hundred migrants already charged with illegal entry have faced additional misdemeanor counts alleging trespass on military property. Analysis of court records indicates that more than ninety per cent of those cases have already been resolved, yet the overwhelming majority did not result in convictions on the military trespass counts. Approximately sixty per cent of the additional charges were dropped or dismissed.<\/p>\n

Despite this pattern, federal prosecutors have continued filing the charges at scale. At least nine judges in West Texas and New Mexico have ruled that the prosecutions fail to satisfy basic legal standards. Their reasoning repeatedly invokes the principle of mens rea. Many defendants, the courts concluded, could not possibly have known that they were crossing land designated as military territory, particularly when the alleged boundary between civilian land and military jurisdiction was not clearly marked or demonstrably visible.<\/p>\n

The insistence of federal prosecutors on pursuing these cases has baffled numerous legal scholars and former federal prosecutors who were interviewed during the investigation. More than twenty experts stated that they could not identify a conventional law enforcement or national security rationale for maintaining the prosecutions in the face of repeated judicial rejection.<\/p>\n

The courtroom consequences have been dramatic. Federal dockets in the border districts have become crowded with cases that judges increasingly view as legally dubious. West Texas District Judge Leon Schydlower openly questioned the logic of conducting jury trials for misdemeanour charges that would have no meaningful effect on sentencing outcomes. During one exchange with prosecutors he noted that roughly forty similar cases were pending on his docket alone and asked how the government would proceed if all of them were scheduled for trial simultaneously. Assistant United States Attorney Patricia Aguayo replied that prosecutors would prepare to proceed with all of them because they had no discretion to abandon the charges. That explanation reflected the broader institutional pressure shaping prosecutorial behaviour. According to internal directives issued by Attorney General Pam Bondi<\/span><\/span>, federal prosecutors were instructed to demonstrate zealous advocacy in advancing the administration\u2019s enforcement priorities. The directive warned that prosecutors who refused to pursue such cases could face professional discipline or even termination. Senior officials within United States attorney offices declined repeated requests for interviews regarding the prosecutions. A spokesperson for the Justice Department asserted that one of the relevant charges carried a longer sentence and claimed that the prosecutions had served as a deterrent to illegal crossings and cartel activity along the border. However the department did not provide empirical data supporting that claim. The legal stakes of the policy became particularly clear during Flores Penaloza\u2019s trial before Chief Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth in New Mexico. During the proceedings prosecutors were unable to identify the precise location where Flores Penaloza had allegedly crossed the border or produce a map clearly delineating the boundaries of the national defence area. One prosecutor ultimately conceded that the government could not satisfy the mens rea requirement previously articulated by the court.<\/p>\n

Judge Wormuth reacted with visible frustration. After noting that the defendant had remained in custody for forty days largely due to the disputed trespass allegation, he concluded that the government had failed to present any evidence proving that Flores Penaloza had entered the designated military zone at all. The judge described the prosecution as profoundly troubling and acquitted Flores Penaloza on the military trespass counts while finding him guilty of illegal entry. Following the verdict the defendant was deported to Mexico.<\/p>\n

The legal experiment underlying these prosecutions originates from a controversial executive decision taken by President Trump in April of the previous year. Declaring a national emergency at the southern border, the administration ordered that more than two hundred miles of terrain in West Texas and New Mexico be transferred from the jurisdiction of civilian agencies including the Department of the Interior to the control of the United States military. The transferred land was then designated as national defence areas effectively extending the boundaries of existing Army installations.<\/p>\n

The policy was intended to create a legal mechanism allowing active duty troops to apprehend migrants without violating the long standing restrictions imposed by the Posse Comitatus Act<\/span><\/span>. Under that statute the United States military is generally prohibited from conducting domestic law enforcement operations against civilians. However military personnel retain authority to detain intruders who enter restricted military installations. By redefining stretches of borderland as extensions of Army bases, the administration sought to create a legal workaround enabling troops to detain migrants encountered within those zones. During a visit to deployed forces in one such area, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth<\/span><\/span> argued that migrants should be aware that they were entering restricted territory because warning signs had been posted along sections of the border. According to Hegseth the signs were written in both English and Spanish and clearly informed would be intruders that the area constituted a national defence zone. Yet courtroom evidence has repeatedly undermined that assumption. Migrants detained in these areas frequently reported that they had never seen any warning signs and had no way of knowing they were entering military property. Investigations into court records reveal that some individuals were apprehended more than twenty miles away from the nearest posted sign. In most cases migrants never came within one thousand feet of a sign at all. In at least one Texas case defence attorneys demonstrated how difficult it was to read a twelve by eighteen inch sign even when standing approximately ten feet away. Prosecutors have responded by arguing that the relevant question is not where migrants were apprehended but where they initially crossed the border. However in several cases prosecutors lacked evidence establishing that entry point. These evidentiary deficiencies have repeatedly undermined prosecutions once they reach the courtroom. During one trial in El Paso federal magistrate judge Miguel Torres asked prosecutors to explain how they could prove that a defendant knew he was entering a restricted defence area. Torres emphasised that adequate notice was essential to prevent innocent individuals from being punished under a statute they had no reasonable way of understanding.<\/p>\n

The judicial response to these cases has varied across jurisdictions. In Texas many defendants have chosen to plead guilty to the charges rather than remain in detention awaiting trial. Because challenging the charges can require weeks or months of incarceration while the case proceeds, migrants often opt for a plea agreement that allows them to be deported quickly.<\/p>\n

In New Mexico however judges began dismissing the trespass charges almost immediately after they were filed on the grounds that prosecutors lacked probable cause. Rather than abandoning the prosecutions federal attorneys adopted an unusual procedural tactic. They refiled the cases using a charging document known as an information, a mechanism typically used for misdemeanour prosecutions but rarely deployed to revive cases that courts have already deemed unsupported.<\/p>\n

Court records indicate that prosecutors used informations to resurrect more than one thousand six hundred military trespass cases. Legal experts expressed astonishment at the manoeuvre. Former federal prosecutor Meghan Skelton remarked that in three decades of legal practice she had never witnessed the tool being used in this manner to circumvent judicial findings of insufficient probable cause. The procedural manoeuvre triggered what defence attorneys described as a repetitive courtroom cycle. Judges would separate the immigration charges from the trespass allegations, accept guilty pleas for illegal entry and reaffirm that there was no probable cause to detain defendants on the military counts. Once deportation became imminent prosecutors would then move to dismiss the trespass charges themselves. Former prosecutors who left federal service during the early months of the second Trump administration expressed concern that the strategy was eroding institutional credibility. Marisa Ong, who previously served as an assistant United States attorney in Las Cruces, warned that pursuing legally fragile cases risked damaging the Justice Department\u2019s reputation both in the courts and in the public sphere.<\/p>\n

Another former federal prosecutor Matilda Villalobos resigned after reviewing the attorney general\u2019s directive on zealous advocacy. She explained that she did not want to stand before a judge defending legal positions she believed were unsupported by law. Alex Uballez, who served as United States attorney for New Mexico before being dismissed by the administration, characterised the prosecutions as an attempt to create fear and chaos through aggressive legal tactics.<\/p>\n

Ironically the operational objective that originally justified the creation of national defence areas has largely failed to materialise. The policy was intended to enable active duty troops to apprehend migrants crossing the border. According to the Joint Task Force Southern Border however approximately one thousand five hundred deployed troops had made only sixty eight apprehensions as of the most recent reporting period. The vast majority of detentions continue to be carried out by the United States Border Patrol.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless the administration has continued expanding the military zones across the southern border including areas stretching from California to Texas. In South Texas prosecutors recently filed the first military trespass charges against a migrant accused of crossing the Rio Grande near territory designated as an extension of Joint Base San Antonio<\/span><\/span>. Along that section of the river warning messages about prosecution are broadcast in Spanish from loudspeakers and printed on floating buoys. Border Patrol agents have also begun asking migrants detained within national defence areas to sign written acknowledgements confirming that they entered without permission. Officials argue that such documents will provide evidence of notice if those individuals attempt to cross the border again in the future. In practice the legal outcomes remain mixed. In New Mexico prosecutors have secured roughly twenty guilty pleas from migrants who reentered the United States after previously receiving written warnings. Yet the overwhelming majority of trespass charges filed in the state have still been dismissed or voluntarily dropped.<\/p>\n

The Justice Department has continued defending its legal theory in appellate courts. In one notable case prosecutors charged Komiljon Toirov, a migrant from Uzbekistan who does not speak English or Spanish, with military trespass in New Mexico. Prosecutors argued that it was irrelevant whether Toirov could understand posted warning signs. A judge rejected the government\u2019s request to detain him pending trial and ordered his release.<\/p>\n

The case has since moved between the district court and the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit<\/span><\/span> where judges have openly criticised the government\u2019s persistence. United States District Judge Sarah Davenport wrote that every judge and defence attorney in the Las Cruces courthouse disagreed with the government\u2019s interpretation of the law. A three judge appellate panel later observed that prosecutors had produced little or no evidence supporting their request to detain Toirov. Despite those setbacks the Justice Department has signalled its intention to pursue further appeals in search of a higher court ruling that would validate its interpretation of the trespass statute. Officials maintain that their legal reasoning aligns with precedent established by the Supreme Court of the United States<\/span><\/span>. The persistence has drawn fierce criticism from constitutional scholars. Ryan Goodman, a national security law professor at New York University, described the prosecutions as astonishing and warned that continuing to pursue legally defective cases could constitute prosecutorial abuse with serious consequences for democratic institutions.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile federal courthouses along the southern border have adapted to the new reality. In many proceedings migrants appear in shackles before magistrate judges and quickly plead guilty to the trespass charges in order to expedite their removal from the country. The process has become routine.<\/p>\n

Yet occasionally the routine falters. During a plea hearing in November a migrant named Brandon David Munoz Luna told the court through an interpreter that he had not known he was entering a military reservation. Magistrate Judge Robert Casta\u00f1eda asked the prosecutor whether the government still intended to pursue the charge. The prosecutor replied that the decision was mandated by Justice Department policy. Moments later Munoz Luna entered a plea of no contest and the court moved on to the next case. For legal scholars and constitutional analysts the broader implications of these prosecutions extend far beyond immigration policy. The strategy raises fundamental questions about the limits of executive power, the integrity of prosecutorial discretion and the resilience of the rule of law in periods of intense political pressure. Whether appellate courts ultimately endorse or reject the administration\u2019s interpretation of military trespass statutes may shape the future relationship between national security law and immigration enforcement for decades to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a move that has stunned legal scholars, overwhelmed federal courts and ignited one of the most consequential constitutional debates\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":186,"featured_media":5401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,53,61,2],"tags":[2748,717,2756,74,1376,1542,2751,2740,2743,2749,2747,2744,2757,2750,2755,2746,2754,768,2745,2742,2753,2752,2741,30],"class_list":["post-5400","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-policy","category-premium","category-united-states","tag-alex-uballez","tag-attorney-general-pam-bondi","tag-attorney-patricia-aguayo","tag-donald-trump","tag-el-paso","tag-immigration","tag-joint-base-san-antonio","tag-jose-omar-flores-penaloza","tag-judge-gregory-wormuth","tag-komiljon-toirov","tag-las-cruces","tag-law","tag-leon-schydlower","tag-matilda-villalobos","tag-mexico-jail","tag-miguel-torres","tag-munoz-luna","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-policy","tag-propublica","tag-robert-castaneda","tag-ryan-goodman","tag-texas","tag-top-stories"],"reading_time":"14 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/186"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5400"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5402,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5400\/revisions\/5402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5400"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/trade-policy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}