President Trump abandoned a decree this week on “sanctuary cities”, of which California has a lot.
Without forgetting that we are a sanctuary state.
Alone, this order should draw the attention of cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco and Sacramento, where the commitment to protect our immigrant neighbors, whatever the documentation, is strong.
But stack it with a few other recent Trump movements, and we have what promises to be a summer filled with dissent, fear and a burst of military maneuvers, questionable arrests and attempts to pack the efforts to protect immigrants, documented or not.
At the link of these efforts of the administration, there is pressure to centralize the ever greater power at the federal level, it does not matter that the Republicans have long been the standard carriers of the federalist principle of the rights of the States. Do you remember all these patriots from 1776 who suddenly become silent? “Not to walk on me” has gone from a cry from the war of Maga to a democratic plea.
“We are still a federal state, which means that there are powers which are given to the federal government in DC and the powers which are given to the States and the localities,” said Ross Burkhart. He is a professor of political science at the Boisse State University who studies models of democracy. “I worry that the balance is paid to a highly centralized state.”
First, there is Trump’s decree from April 11 which has not made too many undulations, although it is an expansion of military authority on civilians. Trump turned from the Department of the Interior of the Ministry of Defense A field of land on the southern border which crosses three states – California, Arizona and New Mexico – known as the Roosevelt reserve.
This 60 -foot wide strip is now considered to be part of FT. Huachuca, although the Arizona military base is actually 15 miles away. Never mind. The Roosevelt reserve is now monitored by military staff, and its entry is considered an intrusion to a military base – a criminal act.
The manifest premise of this unusual military control is to have those who illegally cross the border.
But what happens if an American citizen crosses this area without authorization? Maybe demonstrators, for example? Or the humanitarian workers, the genre that brings water to the desert?
They could also be subjected to military detention.
Of course, federal law, in the form of the posse Comitatus Act, prohibits the use of soldiers for civil law forces. Elizabeth Goitein, principal director of the Liberty and National Security program at Brennan Center, an institute of non -profit law and public policy, described the law “absolutely critical protection for our freedoms and our democracy”.
His unique sentence is read as follows: “that, except in cases and in circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or the act of the Congress, voluntarily uses part of the (armed forces) … To execute the laws must be condemned to a fine under this title or imprisoned to the most than two years, or both.”
This sentence was originally written as a compromise to withdraw federal troops from the South during reconstruction after the civil war. These troops protected black voters. But a contested presidential election has threatened with stability, and therefore an agreement was concluded with white southerners still anxious that soldiers could not be used to enforce civil laws – thus eliminating the largest obstacle to the Jim Crow era, but also putting in place this critical protection which prevents the army used to delete citizens. A double -edged sword with deep consequences.
The law possesses comitatus in the most simplistic terms finally led to the rebellion which was the movement of civil rights, and subsequent laws which have made pressure for equality and equity. This led us at the time, when the powers in place seek to cancel these gains.
This brings us to the “except in case and in circumstances” part of the posse Comitatus Act, a Trumpian escape if one has ever been written.
If the first 100 days of Trump have proven something, it is because everything is on the table. Take the Insurrection Act, for example, another element of law filled with flaws that Trump recently mentioned with interest.
Imagine, for example, if the sanctuary cities were deemed to violate federal law. If their leaders were accused of nourishing and helping the undocumented fugitives who have somehow exceeded the Roosevelt reserve, or demonstrations on the street were violent rebellions.
In his executive decree on Monday entitled “Protecting American communities from criminal foreigners”, Trump alluded to such scenarios.
“However, some state officials and local continue to use their authority to violate, obstruct and challenge the application of federal immigration laws,” he says. “It is an insurrection without law against the supremacy of federal law and the obligation of the federal government to defend the territorial sovereignty of the United States.”
It is very similar to the act of insurrection that is about to jump into the posse comitatus escape.
The order then suggests that some state officials and premises could even be in violation of the law on influenced and corrupt organizations, most often used against organized criminal companies such as the mafia, and promises to “continue all the necessary legal appeals and implementing measures to end these violations”.
“The thing about the insurgency law is that it is intended to be used only in very extreme and severe emergencies where there is an immediate and overwhelming threat to public security or for constitutional rights that the state and local authorities cannot or are not addressed,” said Goitein. “Unfortunately, the real text of the law is much broader and it is therefore vulnerable to be exploited by a president who is not forced by standards.”
The same day, Trump also signed another decree, “strengthening and unleashing American police to pursue criminals and protect innocent citizens”, which asks the defense and justice services to “determine how military and national security assets, training, non -lethal capacities and staff can be used most effectively to prevent crime”.
Overall, these orders are a huge expansion of federal police powers, an evolution towards a “security state” where the president could have the capacity to apply martial law and to stop or hold anyone opposes him.
Although the idea of ​​arresting politicians, activists or even everyday people always seems a bit of exaggeration, this has already happened.
Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested last week by FBI agents, accused of obstruction to justice and conceal an individual to prevent arrest.
The famous social justice activist, Reverend William Barber, was arrested with other religious leaders while he was praying in the Rotonde du Capitole on Monday, as part of a demonstration against republican budget cuts.
A woman from Oklahoma and her daughters, all American citizens, were excited by their beds in the middle of the night last week, under their underwear and under the threat of a firearm, by the federal authorities (who refused to identify) in search of undocumented immigrants.
And Stephen Miller, from Santa Monica and Trump immigration architect, had this after Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called for peaceful demonstrations against Trump’s authoritarian movements: “His comments, if nothing else, could be interpreted as incited to violence.”
Perhaps the type of “violence” that leads Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act?
Although a hot summer of Trump is on the horizon, Goitein said that she hoped that people will successfully grow back.
She points out that although Trump does not seem to worry about crossing the limits, he cares about his image. Currently, its popularity in the polls is tanking and it is personalized non -grata on the international scene. The pressure and power of non -violent demonstrations can still prevent this administration from walking on democracy.
People, said goitein, are not helpless.
“We are not there yet,” she said. But things warm up.
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