Our military was not created to adjudicate Kabul's urban renewal project or Baghdad's Sunni-Shia conflict. Its main purpose is to protect our country from foreign invaders. If we can't send the military to deal with the millions of people strategically herded into the country by ruthless drug cartels (the same ones that have killed hundreds of thousands of Americans with fentanyl), what on earth can we do? Is there a purpose? The fact that these people do not remain near the border does not transform mass removal into a domestic law enforcement problem. It remains a national defense issue.
Much of the media shouts “Friends!” It's as if invoking it magically prohibits the military from responding to an invasion, giving the appearance of legal astuteness. Some Republicans, such as the libertarian-leaning Rand Paul of Kentucky, have expressed concerns about the “optics” of using the military for mass deportations. Cutting off employment and welfare incentives would likely encourage many to leave the country on their own and eliminate the need for mass deportations, but it would likely prevent the use of military from being legislated based on a flawed interpretation of the law. cannot be excluded.
Prudence or “point of view” must not mislead us into spreading misinformation about the legal powers we must hold.
Ulysses S. Grant signed the Posse Policing Act of 1878 to prevent the military from enforcing Reconstruction-era domestic laws on American citizens in the South without express authorization from Congress. But repelling aggression at borders or within the country is difficult. accurately It's the kind of mission our founders envisioned for the military. Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution requires the federal government to protect the states from invasion. This is thanks not only to border states like Arizona and Texas, but also to all states affected by illegal immigration.
Article IV, Section 4 should serve as a constitutional exception to the Posse Polis Act prohibiting military enforcement. The Constitution itself explicitly authorizes federal action to protect the nation from invasion, making it a legitimate use of military force in the face of ongoing crisis.
Even without a constitutional provision, the law itself only prohibits the military, under the direction of local sheriffs, from enforcing domestic laws that affect Americans, such as tax laws or traffic regulations. This prohibition derives from the term “posse comitatus,” meaning “county power.” An 1878 law prohibits the military from acting as reinforcements to enforce local laws under the authority of county sheriffs.
This law responded to Attorney General Caleb Cushing's 1854 opinion during the “Bloody Kansas” conflict that “every person within the district or county over the age of 15 years,” including “militia, soldiers, and marines,” It is something that Belongs to the police and is subject to the orders of a sheriff or sheriff. As the Congressional Research Service points out, Congress was alarmed by this precedent even before 1878 and tried to limit it through the Army Appropriations Act, which prohibited the use of the military to enforce Kansas' territorial laws.
But under Mr. Trump's proposed plan, the military would focus only on those who invade countries and enforce national sovereignty laws. Just as states can declare an invasion, the federal government has the power to treat border violations by 10 million people as an invasion. When gangs like Torren de Aragua operate in half the state, their numbers exceed the force America's Founders envisioned threatening the nation when they wrote the Constitution.
It is perfectly legal to use military force in this context. Just because we call this an “immigration law'' does not turn it into a domestic territorial issue outside the scope of national defense.
During Operation Wetback, President Eisenhower used the U.S. military, including the National Guard acting under Title 10 federal orders, to deport up to 1.3 million illegal aliens. The operation was completed within a few months and was not challenged in court for violating the Civil Police Act. At the time, the threat to national defense from cartels and transnational gangs was much smaller than it is today.
The lack of legal challenge stems from the fact that deportation is not equivalent to law enforcement actions to deprive people of life, liberty, and property, as protected by the 1878 law. As the Supreme Court ruled,
Feng Yue Ting vs. America (1893):
A deportation order is not a punishment for a crime. This is not “exile” in the sense often used to expel a citizen from his or her country through punishment. It requires the national government, acting through the appropriate departments within its constitutional powers, to compel the return of an alien who, on the basis of its performance, has failed to comply with the conditions under which the alien has decided to continue to remain in the country. It's just a way to do it. Whether you can live here or not depends on it. Therefore, he was not deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process or law, and the Constitution's provisions ensuring the right to trial by jury and prohibiting unreasonable searches and seizures and cruel and unusual punishment Not applicable.
In other words, acts that do not comply with due process laws are not subject to restrictions on military use under the Civil Police Law. If the purpose is to prosecute and indefinitely imprison illegal aliens, it is an act of domestic law enforcement. However, it is within the military's legal authority to escort someone across the border who violates national sovereignty.
There would be no need for a large army to go door to door to deport illegal immigrants. If you cut off incentives such as employment, identity theft opportunities, benefits, and K-12 education, most people will leave voluntarily. The combination of state law enforcement and the National Guard operating under Title 32 (not subject to posse law) ensures that encounters with the state are eliminated in red states. This approach would deter illegal immigration and limit aggressive deportation efforts targeting criminal aliens. In fact, some illegal immigrants in Springfield, Ohio,
already leaving Looking ahead to the inauguration of President Trump.
Prudence or “point of view” must not mislead us into spreading false information about the legal authority we should hold. This is less about protecting the fragmented territory of a warring Islamic capital and more about defending territorial sovereignty, the very purpose for which America's founders envisioned a standing army.
