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 administration had been planning for weeks to potentially use the Pentagon-controlled, multistate zone as a place to temporarily hold migrants.

The U.S. Department of Defense is now in charge of securing the country's southern border, having been granted new powers to enforce security there by President Donald Trump.