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Trump's Devastating Military Occupation of the Border [1]
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Date: 2025-04-12
In the desert silence of the U.S.-Mexico border, a quiet but relentless occupation is underway. It is not a war in the traditional sense. There are no declarations, no victory parades. But make no mistake: this is a battle. It is being waged not for peace, not for people, but for power. Today, the Pentagon has taken control of public lands along the border. A place of open skies, dry scrub, bird flight, and ancestral soil, once meant to belong to everyone now belongs to the military.
Since January, when Donald Trump returned to the White House, the militarization of the border has accelerated with disturbing clarity. Nearly 13,000 troops, including 10,000 active-duty soldiers and 2,500 National Guardsmen, are stationed along the southern perimeter. The deployment is explained away with tired language: “national security,” “illegal crossings,” “stability.” As if these words absolve what’s being done in their name.
The U.S. Navy now patrols the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast with destroyers like the USS Gravely and USS Spruance. Armored vehicles and attack helicopters crisscross the terrain. The desert, once alive with whispers and footsteps, is now filled with the grind of engines and the weight of surveillance.
None of this is new. In 2018, they called it Operation Faithful Patriot. That time, too, there were promises of protection, of control, of a mission carefully managed. But with each new deployment, the line between foreign war and domestic governance grows thinner. What was once considered exceptional has become routine.
And now, public land which has been commonly held for the public good, is no longer public. It has been absorbed. Absorbed not for preservation, not for the people who live there, not for the wildlife whose survival depends on uninterrupted territory, but for fences, for patrols, for conflict.
President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico has called this out for what it is. A trespass. An act of aggression dressed in legalese. She refuses to cooperate with any unilateral action by the United States. In her words, the militarization of the border is not a solution. It is a provocation. It desecrates sovereignty under the pretense of protection.
Meanwhile, the counting casualties remain unnoticed and ungrieved. Not in military terms, but in ecological ones. The Arroyo toad, the California red-legged frog, the jaguarundi. Barriers sever migration paths. Habitats are cut down by 75%. These already endangered species are now inching toward extinction, casualties of an undeclared war.
And the people? They are caught between walls and watchtowers. Asylum seekers and other migrants are pinned into narratives where they are always either threat or burden. They are criminalized before they arrive. Their dignity is erased by policy.
There is no honesty in the way this story is told. The US government speaks of order, law, control. But the truth is visible in the scale of force, the silence around the deaths, the land taken without consent. These are not measures taken in defense of democracy. They are taken in fear of it.
What does it say about a country that places more trust in weapons than in compassion? What kind of nation believes that it can preserve its borders by erasing the very principles that once defined it?
If there is strength in a people, it lies not in how high they build their walls, but in whether they remember what it means to be human on either side of them.
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[1] Url:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/12/2316067/-The-Occupation-of-the-Border?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=trending&pm_medium=web
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