7 hours ago
How Trump Could Use The Insurrection Act To Deploy Troops In LA
As protests continue to flare in Los Angeles over the Trump administration carrying out immigration raids and deploying National Guard troops to the area, President Donald Trump has floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act over objections from California's governor and the mayor of LA.
Invoking the Insurrection Act, which generally gives the president the authority to quell rebellion or unrest by deploying the military, would be an escalation of the administration's actions so far in California. On Saturday, Trump deployed at least 300 National Guard troops to downtown Los Angeles after thousands of protesters took to the streets. They largely concentrated themselves in the city's garment district, where federal agents had started conducting raids for undocumented workers on Friday.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, rioters assaulted multiple ICE officers, 'slashed tires, defaced buildings and taxpayer funded property,' the agency said in a statement on Saturday. (The agency also singled out several Democratic lawmakers, accusing them of 'villainizing and demonizing' ICE agents.) Local news station KTLA reported Monday that at least five LAPD officers have been injured, requiring medical care. Six other officers experienced minor injuries that did require hospitalization.
Many protesters were not violent nor particularly destructive, but some individuals lobbed rocks and fireworks at police, or set driverless cars on fire. Los Angeles police made roughly 150 arrests on Sunday, according to The New York Times. Law enforcement used flash-bangs and rubber bullets against protesters. During a live broadcast on Sunday, police hit a journalist in the leg with a rubber bullet.
Trump signed a proclamation late Saturday that mobilized the Guard to respond to protests against the raids, claiming the demonstrations interfered with the 'faithful execution of federal immigration laws.' As tensions escalated on Sunday, the Pentagon said it was prepared to send in at least 500 active U.S. Marines to Los Angeles.
Trump's proclamation is not an invocation of the Insurrection Act but instead relies on Title 10, or 10 USC 12406, a federal code that allows him to wield his authority as president to federalize the National Guard but only under very limited circumstances. Those circumstances include: an actual foreign invasion or the threat of a foreign invasion, an actual or threatened rebellion against 'the authority of the government of the United States,' or when the president is unable to executive the nation's laws with 'regular forces.'
Before boarding Air Force One on Sunday, Trump was asked by reporters whether he intended to invoke the Insurrection Act outright.
'Depends on whether or not there's an insurrection,' he said, adding that he wouldn't let protesters 'get away with it.'
'We're not going to let them get away with it. We're going to have troops everywhere, we're not going to let this happen to our country. We're not going to let our country be torn apart,' Trump said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass have objected to the White House's use of the National Guard, and Newsom has said he intends to sue the administration. Newsom called the move by Trump to federalize California's National Guard 'purposefully inflammatory.'
Typically, it is a state's governor who has control over that state's Guard, not the federal government.
And notably, within Trump's proclamation is language that appears to clarify this. Under Title 10, the president is allowed to call the Guard into federal service in any state but 'orders for these purposes shall be issued through the governors of the States.'
The Insurrection Act of 1807 — which is a bit of a misnomer since it is actually a combination of several statutes enacted by Congress from 1792 to 1871 — is a federal law that gives the president the power to deploy the military or National Guard to put down domestic rebellions, uprisings or other fits of civil unrest.
The act uses Congress' constitutional authority to 'provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions.'
When the Insurrection Act is invoked, it suspends the Posse Comitatus Act, which forbids the military from getting involved in local or state law enforcement. Invoking the law is rare; it has occurred just 30 times in history. The last time was in 1992 as riots gripped Los Angeles following the acquittal of police officers accused of viciously beating Rodney King and California's governor called on then-President George H.W. Bush for help. Trump floated the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked a wave of nationwide protests, most of which were peaceful.
Martial law and the Insurrection Act are not one and the same. The Insurrection Act is invoked, typically, to have the military assist civilian law enforcement. Martial law refers to when the military becomes enforcers of local and state laws. The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether the president can unilaterally declare martial law or whether he would need Congress to approve the declaration.
A president can use the Insurrection Act in a number of ways.
For example, its provisions state that troops can be deployed under the act regardless of whether a state asks for them to be sent there.
And the law cites various reasons presidents may send them. Troops can be deployed to quell violent unrest or to simply enforce federal law in a given locality. (The latest president to invoke the Insurrection Act against a state's will was Lyndon Johnson when he federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect civil rights protesters that marched from Selma to Montgomery.)
The president does not need congressional approval to invoke the Insurrection Act, though he is required to at least issue a proclamation first that demands anyone causing unrest leave that area before troops are sent in.
Many provisions built into the Insurrection Act are vague. One statute gives the president the right to suppress rebellion, domestic violence or some 'unlawful combination or conspiracy' in any state impeding U.S. law.
Conspiracy is not defined in this Insurrection Act statute, meaning, as the Brennan Center for Justice notes, this provision under the Insurrection Act umbrella could be interpreted to mean that the president can use military force against any two people he thinks are conspiring to break the law.
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