Using Military Inside the U.S. — Week of Apr 7, 2025

During the week of April 7, 2025, the White House issued several presidential memoranda that expand military authority at the U.S. southern border and affect named former government officials by revoking or suspending their security clearances — and extending those suspensions to their professional associates and affiliated organizations.

The most significant action was a memorandum directing the Defense Department to take control of federal lands along the southern border, designate them as military zones, and determine what military actions are needed to seal the border. The administration has stated these steps are necessary to address what it characterizes as an ongoing border crisis. This might matter because the United States has maintained a legal wall between military forces and domestic policing since 1878, through what's known as the Posse Comitatus Act — a protection designed to ensure that soldiers are not used as police against people inside the country. Directing the military to assume jurisdiction over border lands and determine its own necessary activities could move beyond the support roles military personnel have played at the border under previous presidents.

That said, there are important alternative explanations. Presidents of both parties have sent troops to the border before, and the memorandum states actions must be "consistent with applicable law," which may preserve existing legal limits. The designation of military zones may also be a temporary measure responding to specific security concerns, focused on land management logistics rather than authorizing soldiers to detain or confront civilians. The actual implementation will determine whether this crosses established legal boundaries.

Two other memoranda ordered the revocation or suspension of security clearances for former officials Chris Krebs and Miles Taylor, and notably extended those suspensions to people and organizations associated with them — including a private cybersecurity company and the University of Pennsylvania. The Krebs memorandum characterizes his work leading CISA's election security efforts as "censorship" and states he "falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen." Presidents do have broad authority over security clearances, and the administration may believe these individuals pose genuine security concerns. However, targeting individuals by name in presidential memoranda based on characterizations of their prior official conduct, and extending consequences to their employers and associates, is unusual and could discourage future public servants and private companies from cooperating with government security missions.

In Congress, the House advanced a bill to eliminate courts' ability to issue nationwide injunctions blocking executive actions. While concerns about such injunctions have bipartisan roots, the bill's timing — during a period of aggressive executive action facing multiple court challenges — raises questions about its practical effect on judicial oversight.

Limitations: This analysis is based on the text of official documents. How these directives are actually carried out may look very different from what they authorize on paper, and legal challenges are likely.