President Trump stopped executive orders this week for many “sanctuary cities” in California.
Needless to say, we are in a state of sanctuary.
That order alone should attract the attention of cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento. There is a strong commitment there to protect immigrant neighbours, regardless of the document.
But stacking it up with a few other recent Trump moves, we promise that it will be a summer filled with challenges and gusts of military manipulation, suspicious arrests and efforts to block efforts to protect documented immigrants.
The bond between these administration efforts is a push to centralize more fragile power at the federal level, and don’t worry that Republicans have long been the standard bearer of the federal rights principles. Remember all the patriots of 1776, who suddenly silenced? “Don’t step on me” has transformed from the cries of the Maga War into a democratic plea.
“We are still a federal state, which means we have the powers given to the federal government in DC and the powers given to states and regions,” Ross Burkhart told me. He is a professor of political science at Boise State University and studies patterns of democracy. “I’m worried about my balance being heavy and tilting towards a state of concentration.”
First of all, there will be Trump’s executive orders starting April 11th. This, despite being an expansion of military insanity towards civilians, did not produce much ripples. Trump was handed over by the Department of Interior to the Department of Defense and handed over to a strip of land at the southern border across three states known as the Roosevelt Reservation (California, Arizona and New Mexico).
That 60-foot-wide strip is now considered part of the FT. The military bases in Arizona are actually 15 miles away, but Huachuca. it doesn’t matter. Roosevelt’s reservation is currently being patroled by military personnel, and entering it is considered a trespassing in criminal activity, a military base.
The obvious premise of this extraordinary military takeover is to detain people who are illegally crossing the border.
But what happens when a US citizen crosses that zone without permission? For example, could you be a protester? Or will you help the kind of workers bringing water into the desert?
They could also be subject to military detention.
Of course, federal law prohibits the use of the military against civil law enforcement in the form of the Congress Comitutus Act. Elizabeth Goitein, senior director of the Freedom and National Security Program at the Brennan Center, a non-profit law and public policy research center, called the law “an absolute critical protection for our freedom and democracy.”
That single sentence is written as follows: [armed forces] …To enforce the law, you will be fined under this title or imprisoned within two years. ”
The sentence was originally written as a compromise to remove federal forces from the south during post-Civil War reconstruction. Those troops protected black voters. However, the contested presidential election threatened stability and failed to use soldiers to enforce civil law, but dealings with still thriving white Southerns were struck. Doubled sword with deep results.
The Comitatas Law of Assembly in its simplest terms ultimately led to the civil rights movement, the insurrection, and subsequent laws that sought equality and equality. It led us to this moment where we had the power to revoke these benefits.
This takes us to part of the Posse Comitatus Act “except for incidents and circumstances.”
If Trump’s first 100 days prove something, it means anything is on the table. For example, consider the rebellion law. Another loophole-filled law that Trump recently mentioned with interest.
For example, imagine a sanctuary city being deemed to be in violation of federal law. If their leaders were accused of somehow passing through the Roosevelt reservation, or helping an undocumented fugitive who had passed the street protest, they were considered a violent rebellion.
In Monday’s executive order entitled “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Foreigners,” Trump hinted at such a scenario.
“Even so, some state and local officials continue to use their powers to violate, obstruct and resist federal immigration law enforcement.” “This is an outlaw rebellion against the superiority of federal law and the federal government’s obligation to defend US territorial sovereignty.”
It sounds like a rebellion ready to jump through the loophole of Posse Comitatus.
Next, some state and local officials suggest that they may even violate the most commonly used assaulter influence and corrupt organizational laws against organized criminal enterprises such as the mafia, and commit to “pursuing all legal remedies and enforcement measures necessary to end these violations.”
“The Riot Act is meant to be used only in very extreme and serious emergencies where there is an immediate and overwhelming threat to public safety or to constitutional rights that states and local governments cannot or cannot deal with,” Goitein said. “Unfortunately, the actual text of the law is much broader and therefore vulnerable to being exploited by a president that is not attributable to norms.”
On the same day, Trump signed another executive order, saying, “strengthening American law enforcement, pursuing criminals, and protecting innocent citizens.”
In summary, these orders are a massive expansion of federal police force, a move towards a “security state” where the president can have the capacity to enforce martial law and arrest or detain anyone who opposes him.
The idea of arresting a politician, activist or everyday person still seems surreal of exaggeration, but it’s already happening.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested last week by an FBI agent and charged with obstructing justice and hiding an individual to prevent arrest.
Famous social justice activist Rev. William Barber was arrested with other religious leaders while praying at the U.S. Capitol on Monday as part of a protest against Republican budget cuts.
An Oklahoma woman and her daughter, all US citizens, were fought back from their beds in the middle of the night last week by federal authorities (who refused to identify themselves) looking for undocumented immigrants in underwear and muzzle.
And Stephen Miller, a Santa Monica native and Trump immigrant architect, said this after Illinois Gov. JB Pretzker called for a peaceful protest against Trump’s authoritarian moves.
Maybe it’s the type of “violence” that leads Trump to invoke the rebellion law?
There’s a hot Trump summer on the horizon, but Goitein said he hopes people can get back together.
She points out that Trump doesn’t seem to care about crossing the boundaries, but he cares about his image. His popularity in polls is now Tanking, and he is a Persona non-Grata on the international stage. The pressure and power of non-violent protest may still protect this administration from tracing democracy.
People are not helpless, Goitein said.
“We’re not there yet,” she said. But things are getting hot.
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