U.S. Marines occupy Gadsden

Sudden, quiet, influx of Marines to border town poses more questions than answers

Over the past few weeks, a substantial number of U.S. Marine Corps personnel have appeared in the relatively quiet border town of Douglas, Arizona. Fresh-faced buzz-cut youths in civvies are rumored to be walking the city’s streets, tight-lipped when asked what they are doing here. And, oddly enough, it appears they’ve bivouacked at the historic Gadsden Hotel, with its grand pink marble staircase and ghosts of Pancho Villa and foregone mining magnates.

Diana LaMar, a Douglas resident and founder of the town’s chapter of Indivisible, first noticed something odd was afoot when she booked a room for a few guests at the Gadsden early this month.

“I booked the room, and by the end of the day, I got a call from the Gadsden informing me that they were going to have to cancel my reservation due to ‘major renovations’ that I was told were going to start on April 6,” said LaMar.

She waited a week, then checked back with the Gadsden to see if the situation remained the same. She says she was told that the ‘major renovations’ had begun, and was surprised to find that the hotel had completely closed itself to any new bookings until sometime this coming autumn.

Then the rumors began to circulate, said LaMar-- that U.S. Marines had completely occupied the Gadsden; that they were here for “training,” or to help with some new iteration of interminable border wall construction, or that they may be involved in coming immigration enforcement raids, or even that there may be some contra-cartel action in the works.

All speculation, all rumors-- just a sleepy border town abuzz. Though it is true that several hundred active-duty U.S. Marines were deployed to support federal immigration raids in Los Angeles just last summer.

This fact, of the Trump administration’s previous domestic use of Marines, along with other potential aspects of this military presence in Douglas, is enough to cause concern for LaMar and other area residents. Douglas is not only a border town, but it is a predominantly Hispanic town-- with more than 14,000 of the town’s total population of about 16,500 being “Hispanic or Latino,” according to 2020 U.S. Census Bureau data.

Whatever the purpose of this military presence may be, Cochise Regional News has confirmed that a sizable number of U.S. Marines have arrived in Douglas, and that they have completely booked the Gadsden-- for the foreseeable future. According to a source familiar, the Gadsden Hotel, which has 30 guest rooms, is completely booked and not accepting any reservations until October 1. These bookings are due to occupancy by U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) personnel, who began their stay in the hotel earlier this month.

The Best Western hotel situated in Douglas also has a number of USMC bookings, according to a source familiar.

Mysterious, ill-defined, military “national defense areas”

The purpose of this USMC presence is not clear. Douglas is a border town that butts right up against the sometimes-razor-wire-festooned steel border wall that separates it from Agua Prieta, Sonora-- but it is not part of areas on, or near, the U.S./Mexico border that have been placed under military control by the Trump administration.

Through 2025, the U.S. Department of the Interior and Department of Defense, acting in accordance with executive orders and memoranda issued by President Donald Trump, created four “National Defense Areas” (NDAs) running in piecemeal fashion along the U.S./Mexico border. These areas consist of portions of the Roosevelt Reservation (a 60-foot wide strip running along much of the Southwest Border in New Mexico, Arizona and California), as well as other federal lands-- some of which are situated well inland from the border.

These properties were transferred from DoI ownership to DoD-- and, in its hands, the Pentagon placed the areas under the jurisdiction of a number of military bases, so that military personnel may patrol and apprehend anyone found to be present without authorization.

Though DoD states that military personnel work within the NDAs to “support” U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies like Customs and Border Protection, creation of the areas was a clear workaround to federal law prohibiting direct military enforcement of civilian law on American soil.

Two of these NDAs span portions of the border in Texas and fall under the purview of bases in that state. Another covers a portion of New Mexico’s southern border and is the responsibility of U.S. Army base Ft. Huachuca (situated in Cochise County, Arizona). The fourth NDA consists of a 140-mile portion of land adjacent to the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range near Yuma, according to DoD materials.

Because federal ownership of land along, or near, the Southwest border is not uniform or contiguous, the NDAs are not contiguous easily-defined areas. And, given the fact that the “defense areas” are essentially extensions of the military bases that oversee them, those who wander onto them without DoD authorization may face substantial criminal penalties (including a possible year in prison) and substantial fines. Yet-- despite the fact that the public may want to know where these NDAs are, so they do not wander onto them-- the “National Defense Areas” are shrouded in opacity; there this a dearth of published information from DoD comprehensively detailing the boundaries of each NDA, and information pertaining to military activities on, or near, the NDAs is even harder to come by.

So what are U.S. Marines doing in Douglas? Given that the town is not on, or near, an NDA, this is a very good question.

The Yuma NDA, the only such area in Arizona, is operated under the auspices of Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, near Yuma, Arizona (on the western side of the state). There appears to be no publicly-available map showing where, exactly, the Yuma NDA is. Nevertheless, the town of Douglas (which is situated in southeast Arizona) is at least 120 miles from the nearest possible boundary of the Yuma NDA-- if scant materials currently published by DoD are accurate.

Similarly, Douglas is a fair distance from the New Mexico NDA, with its city limits falling about thirty miles to the west of the nearest portion of that “defense area,” which is operated under the purview of Ft. Huachuca (situated about 75 miles west of the “defense area”). Both Douglas and Ft. Huachuca are situated in Cochise County.

Ft. Huachuca Public Affairs Officer Angela Camara told CRN that, while the New Mexico NDA is an extension of the U.S. Army’s Ft. Huachuca, command of operations on the NDA (as is the case with all four NDAs) falls under DoD Northern Command’s “Joint Task Force-Southern Border.” As such, Camara said she was not able to speak to the purpose of any USMC presence in the area, or operations on the NDA-- if this Marine presence is even related to the NDA-- and referred such questions to the Northern Command task force. Camara did note, however, that there are currently “a lot more Marines on our Army post than we’ve had before.”

Silence and a postscript

Cochise Regional News submitted written questions pertaining to the presence of Marines in Douglas to the Department of Defense Public Affairs Office, which declined to comment and referred our questions to USMC.

CRN attempted to reach public affairs personnel by phone, and also submitted written questions to: USMC, Marine Corps Air Station Yuma, and Northern Command JTF-Southern Border. None have responded.

A side note of interest: as Cochise Regional News has previously reported, Cochise County Sheriff Mark Dannels was a participant in a Project 2025 subgroup called the Border Security Workgroup [read more about Dannels’ involvement here and here].

The group worked throughout 2024 to craft implementing plans for Trump’s promised mass immigrant deportations and other national security objectives.

Plans created by the group called for military occupation of the Southwest border, merger of military with domestic law enforcement nation-wide, and even phased military deployment across the nation in the form of joint task forces. These documents discuss initial military operations on the Southwest border as a “‘pilot’ for future operations,” and clearly contemplate integration of military forces with domestic law enforcement throughout the entire nation.

Notably, some involved in crafting these plans for the merger of military and domestic law enforcement in the hands of President Trump have deep ties to Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 presidential election.

Several of the individuals who worked within this Project 2025 subgroup to craft these plans now occupy consequential positions within the Trump administration.

For his part, in a February 2025 Cochise County Board of Supervisors meeting, Sheriff Dannels-- who is now a member of Trump’s Homeland Security Advisory Counsel and frequently mentions his relationship with “border czar” Tom Homan-- stated that he anticipated a substantial military presence would be coming to Cochise County.

[Update: on April 15, following publication of this article, Joint Task Force-Southern Border spokesman Navy Lt. Justin Truong responded to written questions submitted by CRN.

“U.S. Marines in Douglas, Arizona are with Combat Logistics Battalion 7, 1st Marine Logistics Group, which deployed to the southern border in April 2026 under Joint Task Force – Southern Border,” said Truong.

“There are approximately 400 Marines operating in the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson sector [Douglas and Cochise County are within this Border Patrol operational sector]. As a logistics unit, these Marines are tasked with conducting barrier reinforcement and road improvements as part of the Department of War support to the Department of Homeland Security.”

As to the presence of Marines in a town that has not been subsumed by a military base through “national defense area” designation, Truong stated that military service members assigned to the task force are not confined to NDAs, but conduct operations along the entirety of the U.S./Mexico border.

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, federal military personnel are generally barred from conducting direct civilian law enforcement operations. As such, military forces are generally used domestically in a “support” capacity to civilian law enforcement agencies, such as those of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It is in this “support” capacity to DHS that Truong said task force personnel deployed along the border outside of NDAs are deployed (Truong admitted that military personnel do apprehend and “temporarily detain” individuals within NDAs, who are then handed over to federal law enforcement-- though he insists this is not tantamount to military performance of law enforcement duties).

This “support” role has been increasingly abused. When, in June of last year, Northern Command dispatched armed active duty Marines to Los Angeles-- a move widely seen as one meant to intimidate Americans protesting the administration’s immigration raids-- the mission was stated to be one of “support” to federal law enforcement agencies.]

Beau Hodai, Cochise Regional News-- April 14, 2026

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