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Trump Is Considering Deputizing the Military as a Civilian Police Force. That Is Terrifying.
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:
Trump’s abuses have exposed weaknesses in our laws and ins utions that were previously hidden and which we can now begin to try to fix.
the Trump administration is considering invoking the Insurrection Act
to give federal troops the power to detain and remove undo ented immigrants in the United States,
acting essentially as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
If Trump follows through on this plan,
it would be a staggering abuse of authority,
on par with the president’s 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 cir stances
to deal with a long-standing issue that does not come close to posing an urgent or overwhelming threat. In both cases,
the president’s 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.
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/...olice-ice.html
