Sec. Burgum: We’re Transferring the Roosevelt Reservation to the DoD, ‘If Someone Now Steps Across the Border … They’re Basically Trespassing on a Defense Installation’

EXCERPT:

BURGUM: “I mean, what a connection between two incredible presidents. Theodore Roosevelt in 1907 had the vision and the foresight when the border was being, you know, clearly established between New Mexico, Arizona California, running across the southern border, not including Texas because Texas was its own country first for 10 years before it became a state, but along that thing there's a piece — a 60-foot strip of land called the Roosevelt Reservation. That 60-foot strip in the 1907 initial commissioning of that said, 'Hey, if there is a point in the future if we got to stop smuggling,' was the word they used at that time, 'we should allow the federal government to control this.' We are transferring the Roosevelt Reservation to the DOD. If someone now steps across the border onto that strip controlled by the department of defense, they are basically trespassing on a defense installation. And with that, that allows our military that are at southwestern border that they can detain someone until the Border Patrol, who has arrest authority, can arrive. So it allows for greater coordination and a stronger legal foundation between the great work that is going on between our Border Patrol and the DOD.”