Trump’s Invasions Are Losing In The Legal Courts And Court of Public Opinion
Trump's unjustified deployment to L.A. violated federal law, a federal court ruled this week. Public opinion has also been against the president. When will his party speak out?
Donald Trump’s unprovoked invasion of Los Angeles this past June violated a nearly 150-year-old federal law that generally prohibits the use of the U.S. military against the American people, a federal judge ruled this week.
In his often-blistering decision, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer stated that there was no justification for the deployment, writing that while there were instances where “some individuals engaged in violence,” the fact was that “there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.” Notably, Judge Breyer further warned that the administration appeared intent on creating a national police force with Trump – the first president to be convicted of a felony – as its self-appointed leader.
“Moreover, President Trump and Secretary Hegseth have stated their intention to call National Guard troops into federal service in other cities across the country—including Oakland and San Francisco, here in the Northern District of California—thus creating a national police force with the President as its chief,” Judge Breyer wrote.
“Breyer’s decision follows closely the arguments California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s legal team made,” CalMatters reported. “They contended that the 700 U.S. Marines and 4,000 National Guard soldiers that the Trump administration deployed to Southern California after protests in Los Angeles broke out against federal immigration sweeps violated a 19th century law called the Posse Comitatus Act. It prohibits the military from engaging in law enforcement activity.”
Breyer’s ruling was just one of several court defeats for the Trump administration on Tuesday alone, including a ruling by a panel of judges from perhaps the most conservative appeals court in the nation, which ruled against the administration’s use of 1798 wartime law to purge dozens of innocent men to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador this past spring.
The judicial system is speaking – and so is the court of public opinion, as Jamison Foser writes in his Finding Gravity newsletter.
“A new Quinnipiac poll finds that Americans oppose Trump’s move to send troops to the streets of Washington, DC by a 15-point margin, with independents rejecting the move by nearly 30 points. That’s despite the fact that Quinnipiac’s poll question was biased in Trump’s favor.” Emerson College Polling similarly found a plurality of respondents, 48%, disapproving of National Guard colluding with ICE. And a third poll, from Data for Progress, “finds that a majority of voters (51%) oppose the Trump administration taking over the Washington, D.C., police force and deploying the National Guard in the city.”
But as Judge Breyer noted in his opinion, Trump has threatened to expand his unpopular, unlawful overreach deeper into more of our communities. “I have the right to do anything I want to do,” Trump said in one remark noted by Judge Breyer. “I’m the President of the United States.” That includes a new threat to invade Chicago, which has since earned a bold rebuke from Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who warned that “once they get the citizens of this nation comfortable with the current atrocities committed under the color of law, what comes next?" Gov. Pritzker also shared that he believes mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller may vindictively seek to target Americans celebrating Mexican Independence Day later this month. That would be no shock: Miller has been bullying Latinos since his youth, as Univision reported in 2017.
"It breaks my heart to report that we have been told ICE will try and disrupt community picnics and peaceful parades,” Gov. Pritzker said. “Let's be clear: the terror and cruelty is the point, not the safety of anyone living here."
This isn’t about public safety or law and order, as Rep. Chuy García (IL-04) added in his interview with Democracy Now! “It’s a show of force meant to intimidate, to create fear and send troops to occupy cities because people in those cities largely and overwhelmingly oppose Donald Trump and his policies.”
This is where our system of checks and balances is supposed to come into play. Supposed to. While a split Congress did pass a resolution during Trump’s first term opposing the supposed national emergency he declared in order to appropriate money for his ineffective and wasteful border wall, House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune have essentially ceded their authority as a co-equal branch of government. Both are leaders in name only. Trump is in charge.
It’s a disturbing reflection of just how far the GOP has fallen into loyalty to a self-described dictator, including trampling on their supposed championing of states' rights and pledging allegiance to Trump over the U.S. flag they wear on their lapels. But they shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that their constituents back home aren’t paying attention to when they roll over for Trump. They are. Just look at Rep. Warren Davidson’s (OH-08) recent town hall, where attendees jeered the congressman over his silence on Trump’s invasion.
“How do you justify or feel about the deployment of the National Guard in American cities while being such a supporter of small government reach?” asked one attendee, “inspiring cheers and a standing ovation,” The Daily Beast reported. When Davidson claimed that he was “glad that people recognize that I do want a much smaller government,” the audience erupted in laughs and jeers, the report continued.
The administration’s effort to establish an authoritarian police state in the United States threatens to get worse before it gets better, as disturbing revelations about ICE hiring plans and its culture of impunity make clear.
As America’s Voice noted last month, DHS is lowering the age requirement for becoming an ICE agent and the agency will now recruit teenagers to fill hiring quotas under the Big, Ugly Budget bill. That recruitment effort includes ”a prolific social media campaign, featuring memes and imagery that critics say echo white supremacist ideologies,” as The Guardian reported.
“Scott Shuchart, a former senior Ice official under Biden, said he was concerned about white supremacists and violent extremists getting hired as the DHS lowers its standards and speeds up enrollment,” the report said. “The scary ones are the people who want to be Trump’s private army, the insurrectionists, the Proud Boys, the Klansmen and others who might be coming out of the woodwork,” Shuchart said. Recall that in 2020, Trump instructed Proud Boys members to “stand back and stand by.” Since then, he also pardoned more than 1500 insurrectionists, many of whom brutally assaulted police on January 6.
Seems like this would be an optimal moment for Congress to step in to, you know, exercise its oversight authority over ICE. But after giving the agency so much cash that it’s now the highest-funded law enforcement agency in our nation’s history, Congressional leaders and their caucus members are now looking away as the federal government is threatening to occupy entire cities as masked federal agents terrorize immigrants and U.S. citizens alike at the expense of family unity and local economies.
But none of this seems to raise a ripple of concern from Republican members of Congress. Will any of them speak out against the planned escalation to Chicago – and beyond?