In a letter obtained by The San Fancisco Chronicle, Kristi Noem appears inclined to skirt federal restrictions on military involvement with domestic law enforcement.
California National Guard facing off against protesters in Los Angeles on Tuesday. (U.S. Northern Command/Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)
U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem appeared to take a step toward circumventing federal laws that bar the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement in a letter she sent to the Department of Defense Sunday as the National Guard was deployed to Los Angeles amid mass protests over immigration raids.
In a letter obtained by The San Francisco Chronicle, Noem wrote to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the Pentagon should direct military forces
“to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.”
The Posse Comitatus Act prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement without the authorization of Congress.
Noem called on the DOD to
“support to our law enforcement officers and agents across Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and Federal Protective Services (FPS), as they defend against invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens.”
Noem did not specify the so-called “identified foreign terrorist organizations” that she claimed are involved in the protests that have erupted in Los Angeles in recent days in response to raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), in which 118 immigrants were arrested last week.
Noem addressing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and field operations directors from around the country at ICE Headquarters in Washington on May 20. (DHS /Tia Dufour)
President Donald Trump has referred to the protests against his mass deportation operation as “riots,” and has claimed those attending the demonstrations are “insurrectionists,” but the protests were reported to be “largely peaceful” before Trump ordered more than 2,000 members of the California National Guard to Los Angeles on Saturday.
On Monday, 700 Marines were also deployed.
Syracuse University law professor William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem’s request for members of the military to arrest protesters whom she labeled “lawbreakers” could be a step toward “the invocation of the Insurrection Act.”
The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 when Los Angeles residents erupted in fury over the acquittal of four Los Angeles Police Department officers who had been filmed savagely beating Rodney King, a black man who they had pulled over after a high-speed chase.
National Guard soldiers patrolling Los Angeles in April 1992. (U.S. Army Field Artillery School / Wikimedia Commons / Public Domain)
The 1792 law authorizes the president to deploy military forces domestically to suppress rebellions or unrest, when local or state law enforcement is unable to control the situation.
But Stephen Dycus, a professor emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School and an expert in national security law, emphasized that local authorities did not appear to lose control of the protests over the weekend.
Noem’s requests for military arrests, along with Trump’s federalization of the National Guard and deployment of the Marines, “can be seen as using the military, or at a minimum using that threat, to instill fear in the American people and discourage the kinds of protests that are going on in Los Angeles,” Dycus told the Chronicle.
“So this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their First Amendment guarantee of free speech and protest.”
Banks called Noem’s push for military detentions of Los Angeles residents “a grave escalation.”
The secretary indicated in her letter to Hegseth that she would send a formal request in the coming days. She also called for “the transportation of munitions” from Fort Benning and Wyoming, but did not say what the weapons would be used for.
Trump and Hegseth during a Cabinet meeting on April 30. (White House / Molly Riley)
California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11) said Trump’s use of the military to suppress protests — which began when ICE agents searched the garment district of Los Angeles for undocumented workers— proves his mass deportation campaign “has nothing to do with deporting criminals and everything to do with creating a militarized terror police state.”
“This isn’t what happens in a democracy,” Wiener told the Chronicle, “this is what happens in a dictatorship.”
Julia Conley is a staff writer for Common Dreams.
This article is from Common Dreams.
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The involvement of Federal Military in California’s current protests is not just a sign of Washington’s suppression and oppression of west-coast citizens who have a serious grievance.
It is, in a wider sense, a warning to California that it should never, ever, even think of being so angry with Washington that it considers secession.
Washington far-right extremists will kill its own citizens to maintain the Union.
We saw this in 1861-1865
This is how dictators operate. Nothing surprising about it for sure.
How does that saying go now, “those who relinquish their freedom for security will have neither.”
Constantly be aware of your surroundings the ‘dogs of war ‘ have been released.
Instead of demonstrating in the streets, people should be meeting with and discussing these issues with their elected representatives. Government official should be available to discuss these issues with citizens.
hard to do when most of the republican types are actively hiding from their constituents., and not a few Dems (see Chuck Schumer). Personally, I think a nationwide general strike would more effective…but I imagine the mainstream Democrats wouldn’t like that at all….I imagine them thinking they can win this thing in the 2026 midterm elections if everyone just sits back and waits….. One doesn’t have to be very bright to realize there likely won’t be any 2026 midterm elections
What part of being in the country illegally are phony “leftists” missing? And why are people who claim they have some kind of “right” to be in the USA defacing American government buildings, looting American businesses, setting American cars on fire, and throwing bricks and stones at American law enforcement – all while waving the flags of the countries they do NOT want to return to? Meanwhile, the GOP is popping champagne corks over the video of burning cars that they will use during the midterms.
Once again the Democraps prove that they are even more stupid and clueless than the Rethuglicans.
Are you sure that’s really what’s going on? Are you sure that all of those people are here Illegally? Is there any way to be more clueless than a Republican w/o having a cerebral hemorrhage or something worse?
A fine comment Vall.
We have to get our arms around this immigration problem. A good majority of working American citizens of all races and ethnicities support the rigorous enforcement of our immigration laws.
The U.S. has been gradually sliding into a kind of soft fascism for at least forty years. Now it is rapidly transitioning to hard fascism and a bonafide police state. Do the American people have what will be required to reverse course? I am not optimistic but hope to be proven wrong.