What does NRC think | Trump throws oil on the fire with steering national guard

Donald Trump’s decision to place the National Guard of California under federal authority and to use it against demonstrators who act against his immigration policy is a very disturbing step in his still young but tumultuous second presidency. Politically, this escalation is transparent, legally it is doubtful and out of the safety point of view.

The reason for the unrest were the mass arrests organized by the Trump government in which the federal services entered the Latino dikes in Los Angeles with great display. Agents from aliens police ICE fell into a neighborhood full of sewing workshops on Friday where undocumented migrants also work. A day later, border guards gathered for a branch of Home Depot. At that hardware store, in the US (not often illegal) workers are looking for chores.

The operations led to predictable protest from the local community. The vast majority of this went violent and in a good atmosphere, but here and there police cars, passenger cars and self -driving taxis were attacked with stones, rental scooters and molotov cocktails. Retur -worthy vandalism, but the local police were fine with this themselves.

Trumps decides to mobilize Gavin Newsom in the national guard of the coastal state against the wishes of Governor Gavin Newsom, was out -offensive. He blew the unrest so unnecessarily in the most popular state of the country, a progressive stronghold and economic superpower. Trump seemed to want to challenge Newsom above all, now that it is often mentioned as contender for the democratic presidential candidature of 2028. And all this on his favorite themes: migration and law and order.

However, the legal basis for his decision is dubious. The last time a president placed against the will of a governor in Gardists under federal authority, was in 1965. At that time the crisis was mirror -image of that of today: President Johnson Mobilized Alabama, after the racist governor Wallace refused to protect Marsen of Civil Actsivists.

The use of men on their own soil is highly controversial. Trump flirted with it during the heated summer of 2020, when demonstrations against police violence rinsed over the country. The army leadership then talked to him in the head.

This second term, Trump seems to be a lot of hesitation: he is looking for the escalation, so that he can appeal to the emergency right. Trump keeps the Insurrection Act thereby as an asset. Under that law from 1807, a president may use the army against his own citizens if there is a ‘rebellion’.

It is not there in Los Angeles. Every soldier in the US also takes an oath to the constitution and is brought in an impossible position by Trump in this way. Earlier this year, however, Trump fired the current chairman of the United Chefs of Staves during a broader political purification of the army top. It remains to be seen whether he will get the same contradiction as in 2020.

Unfortunately, it is not to be expected from the congress, where Trumps party has a majority in both rooms. That means that only a different guardrail remains: the judicial power. Newsom and his Minister of Justice have already went to court to challenge Trumps decision. It is horrifying that soldiers and magistrates are now the latter who can still protect the US against further derailment towards autocracy.

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