The entire range is approved for day and night operations with four controlled, manned, and electronically scored surface attack ranges that are available for training. There are three tactical ranges available spanning several hundred square miles each, and containing two full-size airfield mockups. The area includes the Gila Bend Air Force Auxiliary Field which serves as an emergency landing location for pilots and flight crews training on the ranges.[2]
The USAF operates the eastern portion of the BMGR while the U.S. Marine Corps operates the western portion.
Despite warning signs along its southern perimeter in English and Spanish stating that the BMGR is U.S. Government property, that it is an active military bombing range and that unauthorized entry is prohibited, the BMGR remains among the treacherous access areas southwest of Tucson for Mexican, Salvadoran, and other Central and South American migrants crossing into the United States without documentation, where many have perished.[3][4] Aid workers trying to save people from dying have signed up for annual passes to access the BMGR, including a waiver of liability for live bombing, but some workers have been banned and threatened with trespassing charges, citing property policy that requires everything packed in to also be brought out.[5]
In August 2018, The Marshall Project reported in an interview on the progressive news program Democracy Now! about the inability to deliver food, water, and other aid to migrants due to restrictions barring the access to the military area.[6] Freelance Mexican-American investigative reporter John Carlos Frey later told Democracy Now! that a team from the volunteer search-and-rescue group, Aguilas del Desierto (“Eagles of the Desert”) discovered a dozen bodies in a small area they were allowed to search for two weekends, but fear at least hundreds more have died there.[7] The United States Border Patrol deployed support beacons to request emergency assistance, also called "help stations", are shown scattered throughout the area on the accompanying map published by the Marines.
In season 1, episode 3 of The Mosquito Coast on AppleTV, the Fox family and coyote Chuy cross the range to flee the US government and cross into Mexico.