
Texas National Guard soldiers can arrest and detain people for entering the U.S. illegally from Mexico under an agreement with the Trump administration that expands the military's role in immigration enforcement.
The new authority is a shift for the Guard and the military broadly, which has been limited to a supporting role for the Border Patrol. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott gave Texas Guard members the power to arrest migrants on trespassing charges in 2021, but that order was limited to encounters on border landowners' private property.