Posse comitatus, or America beware

Yahoo

11-06-2025

June 10 (UPI) -- For good or ill reasons, few Americans are aware of the Latin phrase posse comitatus and what it means.
President Donald Trump's federalizing the California National Guard and ordering a battalion from the 7th Marine Regiment at Twentynine Palms to Los Angeles against the explicit refusal of Gov. Gavin Newsom to accept assistance brings the term into focus.
It means organizing a group to confront lawlessness.
In 1878, responding to the abuses of the Union Army in law enforcement after the Civil War and Reconstruction, the Posse Comitatus Act was signed by President Rutherford Hayes.
In part, that law read: "From and after the passage of this act it shall not be lawful to employ any part of the Army of the United States, as a posse comitatus, or otherwise, for the purpose of executing the laws, except in such cases and under such circumstances as such employment of said force need the expressly authorized by the Constitution or by act of Congress."
The law was amended in the Patriot Act to expand the use of the military but not regarding law-enforcement roles. That requires the president to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 that, in part, grants the president the authority to deploy the U.S. military and federalize the National Guard to suppress insurrections, rebellions or civil disorder within the United States.
The last time the Insurrection Act was used to authorize the use of federal troops was in 1992 when President George H. W. Bush responded to the riots in Los Angeles after the Rodney King verdict was delivered acquiting the four LA police officers of murder.
The recent LA riots broke out over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials arresting and detaining people accused of illegally entering the United States. A great majority of Americans -- 80-90% -- agree on deporting undocumented migrants with criminal records and who are dangers to the community. An equal number of Americans oppose deporting those people here illegally who are now part of the community and -- rather than being threats -- contribute to society.
But the politics of immigration and the profound disagreements between the two political parties, not the riots, is the issue. In that regard, both Trump and Newsom are responding accordingly to their bases.
However, make no mistake: The Trump-Newsom dispute, including a lawsuit filed against the government for federalizing the National Guard, is a symptom and sign of the dreadful state of American politics.
Trump may have been very clever playing to his base that favors "peace through strength" abroad and at home. Both the Guard and Marines have been assigned to protect federal buildings, installations and employees not, repeat not, to conduct law-enforcement tasks. Yet, that has not been widely advertised to allow most Americans to believe that the military will have a wider use. And Trump has not authorized the Insurrection Act to that end.
Newsom and Trump are using this crisis to make opposite points when the reality is different. Had this been a Republican-controlled state, whether Trump would have reacted or not is debatable. However, it is entirely reasonable that any president would be committed to protecting federal assets.
Had Trump made this argument clear from the beginning, Newsom's response might have been different. But that would have defused the crisis, ironically, in neither of their interests.
Tragically, politics demand exploiting these riots for clearly political and not security or public safety reasons. Trump was arguing that the law was on his side in deporting undesirable undocumented migrants. Newsom was asserting that the governor should be consulted first; that federal forces were not needed; and the president was using this to advance his agenda.
As Inspector Renault in the movie Casablanca famously remarked, "Gambling at Rick's. I'm shocked!"
In these circumstances when rationality and common sense are missing in action, immigration poses an impossible dilemma: what to do with millions who have integrated into U.S. society yet have broken the law in entering the United States illegally?
A tragedy can be seen as a clash to two justified views. These people broke the law. That cannot be ignored. Yet the vast majority of these individuals are now part of the U.S. polity.
The future is self-evident. This dilemma will only worsen as will virtually all political issues on which the nation is divided. In these incendiary conditions, if the Insurrection Act were wrongly invoked, the effect will likely provoke the rebellion it is meant to prevent.
So beware America.
Harlan Ullman is UPI's Arnaud de Borchgrave Distinguished Columnist; senior adviser at Washington's Atlantic Council, chairman of a private company, and principal author of the doctrine of shock and awe. His next book, co-written with General The Lord David Richards, former U.K. chief of defense and due out next year, is Who Thinks Wins: Preventing Strategic Catastrophe. The writer can be reached on X @harlankullman.