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Showing Original Post only (View all)Trump Is Considering Deputizing the Military as a Civilian Police Force. That Is Terrifying. [View all]
Trump Is Considering Deputizing the Military as a Civilian Police Force. That Is Terrifying.
By Elizabeth Goitein
May 21, 20197:01 PM
The Donald Trump presidency, marked by cruelty, corruption, and disdain for the rule of law, has been disastrous for our democracy. If there is one silver lining, it is this: Trumps abuses have exposed weaknesses in our laws and institutions that were previously hidden and which we can now begin to try to fix. We learned about one such weakness in February, when Trump relied on the National Emergencies Act to commandeer funding Congress had specifically denied for the construction of a border wall. The latest such legal loophole is another emergency power that could enable the president to turn the military into his own immigration police force.
According to a report in the Daily Caller last week, the Trump administration is considering invoking the Insurrection Act to give federal troops the power to detain and remove undocumented immigrants in the United States, acting essentially as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. The White House, when asked about the option last week, refused to rule it out.
If Trump follows through on this plan, it would be a staggering abuse of authority, on par with the presidents declaration of a national emergency to build the border wall. In both cases, the president seeks to harness an authority clearly intended for the most dire and unusual of circumstances to deal with a long-standing issue that does not come close to posing an urgent or overwhelming threat. In both cases, the presidents goal is not to avert a catastrophe, but to score political points with his base and consolidate his own power.
The Insurrection Act is an exception to the general rule, enshrined in the Posse Comitatus Act, that presidents may not use the military as a domestic police force. Posse comitatus, in the words of one former Defense Department official, reflects one of the clearest political traditions in Anglo-American history: that using military power to enforce the civilian law is harmful to both civilian and military interests. Deploying soldiers as police officers not only violates democratic sensibilities; it increases the risk that interactions with civilians could go disastrously wrong, as armed forces are not trained in conducting law enforcement activities. On the flip side, every soldier engaged in law enforcement is being pulled away from military priorities.
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https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2019/05/trump-insurrection-act-military-troops-police-ice.html?fbclid=IwAR3J5YNMVKi3bL0YwEGuN9uy2IqhdRAZm0fEC3tEZlCvHXy56KyB_yev4Ag
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Trump Is Considering Deputizing the Military as a Civilian Police Force. That Is Terrifying. [View all]
babylonsister
May 2019
OP
First they will come after the undocumented and the Dreamers....Who will be next?
ProudMNDemocrat
May 2019
#4
took longer than I thought it would, GOP are your enemy, they want you and your family dead
Eliot Rosewater
May 2019
#5
I would like to think so too. With McConnell in charge if the Senate who knows, eh?
Ford_Prefect
May 2019
#11
Romney will say whatever the current audience wants to hear. Another self-serving elitist.
keithbvadu2
May 2019
#65
I had the same thought- he has neither the intelligence, nor range of knowledge, to do this himself.
NBachers
May 2019
#17
Putin. He did the same thing in his own country, with variations. Read Timothy Snyder's
ancianita
May 2019
#26
trDump wants to be a Robber Barron Oligarch who operates above and beyond any laws.
magicarpet
May 2019
#72
I don't think that's legal. It's illegal to use the military forces for civilian purposes.
Honeycombe8
May 2019
#13
Yes, I mentioned that...thinking back about JFK's use of it during desegregation.
Honeycombe8
May 2019
#29
Even if it's illegal, military doesn't obey civilian law (it has its own), only the CiC. The ONLY
ancianita
May 2019
#31
Red Dawn will say the federal government have to get involved in this situation too
uponit7771
May 2019
#63
I have to think the courts would not permit that, but nonetheless, the presidency has too much power
Perseus
May 2019
#16
I am likewise under the impression that such a thing simply is not legal
PoindexterOglethorpe
May 2019
#20
The biggest weakness of all is that the oaths of office have no teeth. If it did, Mitchy-boy
alwaysinasnit
May 2019
#33
Trump is just a puppet/front. We are in a RW coup, right now. Get to the leaders of that,
Progressive Jones
May 2019
#69
I really don't think he could find enough people to cooperate to make that work
struggle4progress
May 2019
#70