By contrast, Rutgers University professor Bruce Afran said that deploying military forces to Americans without a real state of domestic uprising is “completely unconstitutional.” “To Ice’s office, at the door, there were some graffiti, there were images of protesters breaking into an empty guard,” he said. “But even if the car was to be set on fire, it was not a domestic uprising. It was an illegal act of the protest. We have civil means to punish it without armed forces.”
Avran believes that interfering with civilian expectations, who naturally expect interaction with police but without armed soldiers, can fundamentally change the relationship between citizens and government and even blur the boundaries between democracy and authoritarianism. “The long-term danger is that we start to accept the role of the military in regulating civilian protests rather than allowing local law enforcement to do the job,” he said. “Once we embrace the new paradigm (using a BS word), the relationship between citizens and government will change forever.”
“The violent thugs in Los Angeles, enabled by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, attacked U.S. law enforcement, released the car and refueled,” White House spokesman Abigail Jackson told Wired. “President Trump is rightly involved in protecting federal law enforcement. President Trump will always intervene when Democratic leaders refuse to protect U.S. citizens.”
With the declining orders for mobilizing federal forces, some users on social media urged service members to consider illegal orders and refuse to obey orders – a move legal experts say is difficult to achieve.
David Coombs, a lecturer in criminal proceedings and military law at the University of Buffalo and a veteran of the U.S. Army Judge Defense Attorneys’ Army, said the hypothesis troops could question whether Trump has the right to mobilize the state guards’ objection to a governor. “I think the final answer is yes,” he said. “But it’s a grey area. When you look at the chain of command, it envisions a governor who controls all of these people.”
Combs said when troops are ordered to mobilize, they may (assumably) avoid engaging in activities outside the scope of the president’s order, such as immigration assault or arrest. “In this case, in the 10th identity, all they can do is protect the safety of federal personnel and property. If you go beyond that, it will violate the Posse Comitatus Act.” For example, federal forces will require civilian police intervention. Authorities, authorities want peaceful protesters to be dispersed.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that in a letter Sunday, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem asked the army to direct the army to detain so-called “violators” during protests “or arrest them”, which in ordinary cases, legal experts almost generally agreed that it is illegal. The letter was sent to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and accused the “violent, rebel mob” against protesters aimed at “protecting invaders and military elderly men belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations.”
Khun warned that there is a big difference between philosophy that constitutes an illegal order and disobeying order, and he refuted the idea that the troops will have a choice in the current warm times. “In the middle of actual deployment, this will not be sued,” he said. “There is no immediate relief, no immediate proof of orders being illegal.”
Khun said he was deployed to a similar situation, “My junior soldiers and I will not respond to nonviolent or peaceful protests.” When asked what protesters should expect if they interact with federal forces trained in combat overseas, Kuhn said the Marines would hold their stance more firmly than the police, who were often forced to retreat as the mob approached. In addition to having the same crowd-control weapons, the Marines received extensive training in close combat.
“I want a defensive response, but not a deadly force,” he said.
Other reports from Alexa O’Brien.
