Using military hardware typically reserved for missions overseas, the Trump administration looks to send a message that the status quo has changed.

The plan would put a strip along the southern border under Pentagon control, allowing the military to detain migrants for trespassing on a military base until Border Patrol agents could arrest them.

President Donald Trump late Friday signed a memorandum directing several agencies to start militarizing a stretch of the southern border, an escalation of the administration's use of the U.S. military amid its immigration crackdown.