By suggesting more troops in more cities, Trump bends the role of the army military

First, President Trump drastically increased the number of active troops on the southwestern border of the America.

When protests about deportations broke out in Los Angeles last week, he sent the national guard to bring them down.

When the Governor of California objected, Mr. Trump instructed, sent Marines and even more National Guard troops.

Since the introduction in January in January, Mr Trump has expanded the domestic use of the army step by step, whereby the legal and political boundaries are tested on involving troops trained to fight foreign wars in rolls that are traditionally carried out by the local police or border patrol.

More American troops have now been deployed in Los Angeles than in Syria and Iraq, a fact that the most important spokesperson for Pentagon, Sean Parnell, is promoted on social media on Wednesday.

“This is exactly what the American people voted for,” Mr. Parnell wrote. “Defense of our people and our home country.”

The aim, said that some former military officials and experts about citizen-military relations are to make Americans be used to seeing troops in the streets of big cities, opening the door for Mr. Trump to use his powers as a commander more aggressively to suppress unrest and different opinion.

Mr. Trump’s assistants and allies see his domestic use of the army as a arrears that is needed to maintain order. His critics see it as a worrying step in the direction of politicizing the armed forces and the crawling of authoritarianism.

“What worries me the most is the standardization of political involvement by troops, and new and extensive interpretations of executive power,” said Kori Schake, who was defensive officer in the administration of George W. Bush and now leads the foreign and defense management studies at the American Enterprisestitute.

There was no clearer example of how quickly Mr Trump can try to expand the use of the army within the borders of America in recent days than his actions in Los Angeles.

While the protests there broke out during his aggressive curing of deportation, Mr Trump quickly authorized the use of 2,000 national guard members. The mayor and the governor objected and said that local law enforcement agencies were well equipped to handle the demonstrations.

It was the first time in more than half a century that a president mobilized the troops of the National Guard without the permission of a governor.

Despite the objections, Mr. Trump continued with a political fight with Gov. Gavin Newsom, a democrat, and pointing to examples of vandalism, attacks on the police and cars that are set on fire. With every day that passes, the president raised the number of troops.

He sent hundreds of Marines. Then the president doubled the number of members of the National Guard. He Even approved The arrest of Mr. Newsom after Tom Homan, the ‘Border Czar’ of Mr. Trump, suggested that he could hold the governor in California. “I would do it if I were Tom,” said Mr. Trump Monday.

And the guard’s mission was not only limited to protecting federal buildings against vandalism. Troops began to help the Los Angeles police, but also immigrations and customs enforcement officers While they performed deportation.

To use nearly 5,000 troops in Los Angeles, Mr. Trump called a little -used provision for the use of American forces.

Mr. Trump called on a status, Section 12406 of Title 10 of the American CodeThis enables him to call in the federal service under certain circumstances of the National Guard and units, including during an uprising against the authority of the federal government. California accused Mr Trump of exceeding his authority.

Adding worries is Mr. Trump’s tendency to treat the army as an arm of politics, said Stephen I. Vladeck, a professor at the University of Georgetown. Speaking with troops on military bases, Mr. Trump often uses the opportunity to bash his political rivals, liberals and the news media.

During a speech in Fort Bragg on Tuesday, Mr. Trump led troops to Boo journalists.

What separates Mr Trump’s actions from previous presidents, Mr Vladeck said, is the vast definitions of Mr Trump of what is eligible if an emergency, profession or invasion that would justify a legitimate use of the army. He has promised to use American troops to ‘free’ Los Angeles as if it were under the control of a foreign army.

“It is not that we have not yet had presidents used the army in our own country,” said Mr. Vladeck. “It is that there has been such a clear factual designation for running troops in our own population for the use of troops in our cities. There is really no history of using those authorities for what really partisan political purposes are, more than the recovery of public safety.”

The Pers Secretary of the White House, Karoline Leavitt, described on Wednesday the use of the army by Mr Trump as the completion of a campaign blax.

“President Trump promised to perform the largest massive deportation campaign in American history, and left -wing riots will not scare him in that effort,” she said.

Mr. Trump has made it clear that he intends to take similar actions if there are protests in other states. In conversation with reporters, he described the military deployment in Los Angeles as ‘the first, perhaps, of many’.

“I can inform the rest of the country that when they do it, when they do it, they are met with the same or greater force than we have met here,” he told journalists in the Oval Office Tuesday.

He also said that if someone protests against the military parade that he planned on Saturday in Washington, “they will be met with very heavy power.”

Mr Trump has said that he is also considering calling in the Insurrection Act, a law from 1807 that gives the president the authority to use military force to suppress widespread public unrest and to support civil law enforcement.

“If there is an uprising, I would definitely call it,” said Mr. Trump on Tuesday.

He has repeatedly referred to those who protest against deportations as ‘rebellionists’.

Although earlier presidents have invoked the law, those examples include civil war, armed uprising and deadly riots.

President Andrew Jackson, for example, used the law in 1831 to crush an uprising of people made to slave led by Nat Turner. President Abraham Lincoln called it during the civil war. President John F. Kennedy used the law to send troops to enforce the desegregation of Alabama Public Schools, and President Lyndon B. Johnson called on to protect civil rights marchers in Selma, ALA. President George HW Bush was the last commander in Chief to put it into effect, to bring it into force, During the riots of Los Angeles 1992.

Mr. Trump and his allies have long considered using the army in maximalistic ways, including by calling the uprising.

Although Mr Trump has never called in the law so far, he threatened to do this in 2020 To make the army come across to crowds Protest against the police murder of George Floyd. Stephen Miller, one of his top advisers, also suggested using migrants on the southwestern border, An idea that was rejected During the first term of Mr Trump by the Minister of Defense, Mark T. Esper.

While Mr. Trump understood for ways to destroy his defeat in the 2020 presidential election, some hard-right advisers encouraged him to explain the state of siege and Use American troops to seize voting machinesBut that idea was also rejected.

Yet Mr Trump used the army in a way that previous presidents had not done, judges say.

On the inaugural day this year, He explained a national emergency issued on the southern border and an executive order for the armed forces to take all appropriate action to help the Ministry of the Interior Security in obtaining full operational control over the southern border. “

He has now tripled more than the number of active troops on the border at the end of the Biden administration on the border.

The Pentagon has created two narrow strips of land along the 2,000-mile American border with Mexico-a stretch of 200 miles in New Mexico and 63 miles in Texas value the territory is effectively explained as parts of nearby American military bases. Migrants who introduce the strips are considered to penetrate military country and can be temporarily held by American troops until borderpatrouille agents arrive.

Retired Lieutenant -General Russel L. Honoré said he believed that Mr. Trump’s actions in Los Angeles’ are a precursor of what he wants to do elsewhere throughout the country. “

He added: “He tries to break through the guard in California. And although it is not illegal, it is not normal.”

General Honoré said he saw no levels of violence in the protests that had overwhelmed the police and “crossed the threshold” where he thought a president would be justified to send in the troops.

“He has a political objective,” said General Honoré. “To set the conditions and see how far he could go.”

Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.