Washington, D.C. — Americans should be deeply concerned about the prospect of military troops being deployed domestically for immigration enforcement or to respond to political protests.
But that is a real possibility under President Donald Trump, whose threat to invoke the Insurrection Act raises the specter of unchecked violence and abuse of power that puts our democracy at risk, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress.
Trump has promised to deploy the military to enforce his domestic policy agenda through mass deportations, the stamping out of First Amendment-protected protests, and, potentially, the policing of major metropolitan areas. An abject abuse of the Insurrection Act, such as these threats, has not been seen in the nearly 250 years of the republic. Such deployments would be unprecedented historically and under the U.S. Constitution, which was created to thwart such abuses of power.
The report discusses the historic use of the Insurrection Act, finding that domestic deployment of the military has been a move of last resort. The last time it was used, during the 1992 Los Angeles riots, one incident with soldiers nearly ended in disaster, the report recounts. And when Marines were deployed to the southern border in 1997 to combat drug trafficking, it ended in them shooting an American teenager herding his family’s goats.
Deploying soldiers in American cities to conduct deportations would place our communities at risk, as these soldiers would be placed at the center of a mission that they are neither trained nor equipped for. Moreover, misuse of our troops would degrade military readiness and make it harder to respond to crises, the report finds.
Read the report: “Domestic Deployment of the Military: The Past, Present, and Potential Future” by Hayley Durudogan, Sydney Bryant, and Devon Ombres
For more information or to speak with an expert, please contact Sam Hananel at [email protected].