The Trump administration is seeking to militarize immigration policy enforcement and undermine civil-military relations in the United States.

“The Trump administration is ramping up plans to detain undocumented immigrants at military sites across the United States, a significant expansion of efforts by the White House to use wartime resources to make good on the president’s promised mass deportations,” according to The New York Times.

“President Trump’s team is developing a deportation hub at Fort Bliss, near El Paso, Texas, that could eventually hold up to 10,000 undocumented immigrants as they go through the process of being deported, according to three officials familiar with the plan.”

“Fort Bliss would serve as a model as the administration aims to develop more detention facilities on military sites across the country — from Utah to the area near Niagara Falls — to hold potentially thousands more people and make up for a shortfall of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details of a plan that is still in its early stages and has not yet been finalized.”

The New York Times indicates that “previous administrations have held some immigrants at military bases, most recently children who would then be released into the country to the care of relatives or friends. The bases served as an emergency backup when the federal government’s shelter system for migrant children reached capacity.

“But the Trump administration plan would expand that practice by establishing a nationwide network of military detention facilities for immigrants who are subject to deportation. The proposal would mark a major escalation in the militarization of immigration enforcement after Mr. Trump made clear when he came into office that he wanted to rely even more on the Pentagon to curtail immigration.

“For Trump officials, the plan helps address a shortage of space for holding the vast number of people they hope to arrest and deport. But it also raises serious questions about the possibility of redirecting military resources and training schedules. Military officials say the impact would depend on the scale of arrests and how long detainees remained in custody. And advocates for immigrants point to a history of poor conditions for immigrants held in military facilities.”

The New York Times reports on the militarization of immigration policy enforcement.

Historians of war and society and military institutions have long studied civil-military relations in the United States. For an introduction to these studies, see:

Bacevich, Andrew. Breach of Trust: How Americans Failed Their Soldiers and Their Country. New York: Metropolitan Books, 2013.

Bruneau, Thomas. “Civil-Military Relations.” Oxford Bibliographies in International Law. doi: 10.1093/obo/9780199796953-0184

Feaver, Peter D. Armed Servants: Agency, Oversight, and Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2003.

Feaver, Peter and Richard H. Kohn, eds. Soldiers and Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security, BCSIA Studies in International Security. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001.

Huntington, Samuel P. The Soldier and the State: The Theory and Politics of Civil-Military Relations. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1957.

Janowitz, Morris. The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait, reissue edition. New York: Free Press, 2017.

Kohn, Richard H. “Building Trust: Civil-Military Behaviors for Effective National Security.” American Civil-Military Relations: The Soldier and the State in a New Era, ed. Suzanne Nielsen and Don Snider, 264-289. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.

Kohn, Richard H. “The Constitution and National Security: The Intent of the Framers.” In The United States Military under the Constitution of the United States 1789–1989, ed. Richard H. Kohn, 61–94. New York, NY: New York University Press, 1991.

Kohn, Richard H. “Out of Control: The Crisis in Civil-Military Relations.” The National Interest 35 (Spring 1994), 3–17.

See also