President Donald Trump sent a memorandum to four federal department heads Friday night instructing them to allow the military to use and take jurisdiction of federal land along the US-Mexico border.

The newest effort from the Trump administration to secure the southern border includes authorizing the military to take control of public land along the border.

“The complexity of the current situation requires that our military take a more direct role in securing our southern border than in the recent past,” a White House memorandum said.

The U.S. military will take control of a strip of federal land that spans three states along the southern border in an effort to stem illegal immigration, a memorandum Friday by President Donald Trump said. 

Tom Homan was shaking hands with colleagues around President Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security in Jan. 2017, just days before President Donald Trump was set to take office for the first time. It was Homan’s retirement party, celebrating his more than 30 years of working in immigration enforcement.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem signed a memo this week deputizing up to 600 State Department officials as immigration officers, as part of a government-wide push to ramp up deportations and secure the border.

Noem signed an order that deputized up to 600 special agents in the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Service to help with the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.

The number of illegal immigrants apprehended attempting to enter the United States from Mexico in January dropped off sharply as the second Trump administration implements a crackdown at the southern border, according to new government data released Monday.

 More than 25 religious groups have filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging a Trump administration order that allows immigration agents to make arrests at houses of worship.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington and says the new policy is spreading fear and lowering attendance at services and other church programs, which the groups say infringes their religious freedom.

That freedom, the groups say, includes their ability to minister to immigrants, including those who don’t have documents.

The Pope strongly criticized the Trump administration’s mass deportation of illegal aliens in a letter to U.S. Bishops dated February 10, reiterating his longstanding support for a permissive approach to immigration grounded in Catholic doctrine.

Pope Francis’s ten-point letter likens the plight of migrants to the Holy Family’s escape to Egypt and calls for an immigration policy based on upholding the fundamental dignity of every human being.

President Trump says he agreed to “immediately pause” tariffs on Mexico for a month after a “very friendly” conversation with the country’s president Claudia Sheinbaum.

“I just spoke with President Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico. It was a very friendly conversation wherein she agreed to immediately supply 10,000 Mexican Soldiers on the Border separating Mexico and the United States,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“These soldiers will be specifically designated to stop the flow of fentanyl, and illegal migrants into our Country,” he wrote.