Let’s be clear: regardless of one’s particular political affiliation, modern American citizens almost universally like to see their elected public officials stand up for the rights of those citizens. Wimpish public officials generally get no love from the electorate. That particular lesson may be reinforced during the next national voting cycle when U.S. congressional seats are at stake and this year’s massive tail-tucking in the voting for the so-called “big, beautiful bill” is not forgotten as Americans lose their health insurance and hospital availability.
Although current California Governor Gavin Newsom has already thrown down the gauntlet and recently challenged the Trump administration’s legal authority to bully the state by sending U.S. military troops to handle regular citizen displeasure at I.C.E. raids and other federal thuggery—especially after the egregious pictures of a current U.S. Senator from California being manhandled and thrown to the ground by various federal police—the most recent news coverage of Mayor Karen Bass being present and publicly outraged at the spectacle of federal troops and I.C.E. personnel swarming into L.A.’s MacArthur Park a few days ago was both great press and great leadership. Mayor Bass’s ardent defense of L.A.’s self-governance effectively extinguished any remaining blame for the recent fires in the city.Los Angeles has now joined a very prominent lawsuit against the Trump administration’s use of unrequested federal troops in Los Angeles. The lawsuit, filed recently by the American Civil Liberties Union and other immigration and civil rights groups, seeks to stop what officials have described as “unlawful” and “unconstitutional” immigration enforcement in the region. The lawsuit accuses federal agents acting as local police of using unlawful police tactics such as racial profiling to meet immigration arrest quotas set by the Trump administration. The legal action by Los Angeles marks its first formal effort to halt the raids after the Trump administration sued Los Angeles in June for limiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Joining Los Angeles in this effort are Los Angeles County, Pasadena, Santa Monica, Culver City, Pico Rivera, Montebello, Monterey Park, and West Hollywood.
Calling the use of federal troops a series of “unconstitutional roundups and raids,” Los Angeles is citing the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts the use of the U.S. military in domestic law enforcement situations. Essentially, the Act is to prevent the U.S. military from being used as a state or local police force inside the United States, unless such action has been explicitly authorized by language in the Constitution or by an act of Congress.
Explicitly, Posse Comitatus prohibits the use of the Army and Air Force—and, through amendments, the Navy, Marine Corps, and Space Force—as a law enforcement entity anywhere within the United States.
The primary exception to Posse Comitatus is the Insurrection Act, which allows the President to deploy the military for domestic law enforcement only under very specific circumstances, such as to suppress rebellion or to enforce federal law (as was done with the use of federal troops to integrate schools in the South in the 1950s). The Trump administration is claiming Insurrection Act authority again.
Keeping up with this court battle is a perfect school assignment for American and California youth currently overwhelmed with social influencing and other nonsense. Such lessons are necessary for the survival of American democracy.
Professor David L. Horne is founder and executive director of PAPPEI, the Pan African Public Policy and Ethical Institute, which is a new 501(c)(3) pending community-based organization or non-governmental organization (NGO). It is the stepparent organization for the California Black Think Tank which still operates and which meets every fourth Friday.
