Trump using military to secure border is a precursor to martial law
With the usual amount of deception we’ve come to expect from Donald Trump, an announcement was made this past weekend that he would use the military to “control federal land” on the southern border ahead of making a decision on whether or not he will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 — a move that will inevitably lead to a declaration of martial law.
This all began with Trump’s Inauguration Day executive order declaring a national emergency on the southern border that required the Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth) and the Secretary of Homeland Security (Kristi Noem) to provide a joint report updating conditions at the border along with their recommendations on whether the invocation of the Insurrection Act might be necessary.
“Within 90 days of the date of this proclamation, the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary of Homeland Security shall submit a joint report to the President about the conditions at the southern border of the United States and any recommendations regarding additional actions that may be necessary to obtain complete operational control of the southern border, including whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.”
While waiting for the report that will undoubtedly come down in favor of invoking the Insurrection Act, Trump sent out a memo this past weekend announcing that he will give the military control of “federal land” along the border. This is where the deception comes in because the “federal land” they will control is a 60-foot-wide strip of land known as the Roosevelt Reservation which exists on the America side of the border in California, Arizona, and Texas. In other words, Trump is essentially making this strip of land a military base. (via defenseone.com):
The memo directs the Interior Department to allow the Defense Department to have jurisdiction over portions of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, excluding any Native American reservations.
By creating a military buffer zone that stretches across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, it means any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, therefore allowing active-duty troops to hold them until U.S. Border Patrol agents arrive.
National and military experts have raised concerns that giving control over the land to the military could violate the Posse Comitatus Act, an 1878 law that generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.
The Friday memo instructs its “phased” implementation within 45 days and says it could be expanded over time. The memo is directed at the secretaries of the departments of Defense, Interior, Agriculture and Homeland Security. (Emphasis mine)
Expanded over time? Of course it will expand over time. To begin with, there’s the likely violation of the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA) that will require that Trump have something more powerful at his disposal to achieve his objectives, such as the Insurrection Act.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a federal law that empowers the president to deploy the U.S. military and National Guard to suppress insurrections or domestic violence. And as we saw on January 6, 2020, the criteria concerning what constitutes an insurrection or domestic violence is open to interpretation.
But invoking the Insurrection Act still won’t be the end of Trump’s use of the military as a national police force because he would be restricted to local areas (such as the southern border). In order to deal with the millions of immigrants already in the country, including legal immigrants, he would need to be able to use the military in all 50 states. This is when Trump will need to “expand” again by declaring martial law and when he does, his use of the military domestically will apply to the whole nation.
Out of necessity, declaring martial law will also result in the suspension of the Constitution. Say goodbye to liberty and a further erosion of rights, such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and the right to due process. Additionally, military commanders will replace civilian authorities (local police) and courts would be replaced by military tribunals.
As I wrote last week, Trump is already ignoring the Constitution by denying the due process rights of immigrants, including those who are legally in the country, and deporting them to gulags in El Salvador. With that being part of his track record, it’s quite easy to see where these recent events are heading.
Despite denials by Trump’s inner circle and the faux conservative talking heads that comprise the majority of Con, Inc., — the moniker used to describe conservative frauds working for outlets like FOX TV, The Blaze, Newsmax, etc. — those paying attention during the 2024 election that Trump would do these things as part of the Project 2025 agenda.
Project 2025 is a 900-page blueprint laying out Trump’s first 180 days, and the overall theme of the document is an expansion of presidential power that leads to the creation of a police state capable of completely destroying liberty in America by massively expanding and centralizing executive power that can only be described as tyranny:
“The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, self-appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.” ~ James Madison, The Federalist Papers, Number 47
As I wrote in a few months ago, Project 2025 will radically transform America and ultimately lead to the creation of a police state.
Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts — the architect behind Project 2025 and a current member of the Trump administration — prophesied in a New York Times Magazine interview the events we are now witnessing:
- Trump will successfully reshape government by using the military to enforce his deportation scheme and use his “national emergency” declaration to build massive new detention camps to hold illegals indefinitely.
While illegal immigration is a problem, Trump’s use of the military in this fashion can only be described as a police state tactic. Further confirmation of this reality comes to us from “border czar” and former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Tom Homan. In an appearance on FOX News shortly after the November 2024 election, Homan reiterated his plan to “take the handcuffs off ICE” and ramp up arrests but noted that he will need more resources (such as the Department of Defense) to carry it out and said there are “a lot of what-ifs.”
“So, I’ve been asked a thousand times, how many people can you remove the first year? Well, how many agents do I have?” he said. “Can we bring rehired agents back; the ones that are retired bring them back and rehire them. How many buses do I have? How much money do I have for airplanes? Right? Can DOD assist? Because DOD can take a lot off our plate. There’s a lot of what ifs …” (Emphasis mine)
I have already documented how Trump will use the border security issue to introduce a mandatory national biometric digital ID capable of giving government the ability to track anyone at any time for any reason, so using the military to “secure” the border and eventually declare martial law are simply another piece of his tyrannical puzzle.
David Leach is the owner of the Strident Conservative and the author of The New Axis of Evil: Exposing the Bipartisan War on Liberty. He holds people of every political stripe accountable for their failure to uphold conservative values, and he promotes those values instead of political parties.
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