Will The Military Become The Police? - 15

Do you have your papers?

This series has spanned a lot of years (2010-2025), but it is real as shown by the discussion and reporting below.

It is a transcript of a recent Rachel Maddow presentation.

Let's listen to an update as we approach what this series has wondered about:

NOTE that an ">>" indicates a change of speaker. "Rachel Maddow transcript: So here's kind of a sleeper issue that hasn't gotten much attention. but one of the things i want to do as we close in on the start of the second hundred days of Trump's term in office, is I want to put a little bit of focus on things that haven't yet emerged as major issues, but heads up, they're coming. So here's one. You might not have heard anything about it, but this month, president Trump signed what he called a national security presidential memorandum, which declared that extended swaths of three contiguous states are all now technically a military base. It's 170 miles long, a long strip of federal land along the southern borders of California, Arizona and New Mexico. And in this memo, Trump ordered the Pentagon, the Defense Department, to start taking control of this land. so now the U.S. military has taken control of 170 miles of land, starting in New Mexico along New Mexico's southern border. And they've declared that that land is now part of Fort Huachuca, which is a U.S. army base. that's not even in New Mexico. It's in Arizona. Why would you take 170 miles of land in three different states, and say, all that land is now part of an army base somewhere very far away? Well, the reason Trump is doing that is because he wants active duty U.S. military service members to start arresting people on U.S. soil. Last week, the military announced that U.S. soldiers are now authorized to arrest anyone who steps foot on that 170 mile long strip of land. U.S. soldiers, active duty soldiers, are now newly authorized to search those people. They are authorized to implement crowd control. U.S. active duty troops searching and arresting people on U.S. soil and performing crowd control operations again on us soil. And this land? Yes, it is along the Mexican border, and migrants crossing the border are the stated targets of this new operation. So we may not think of this as something that matters for broader U.S. politics or indeed the health of our political system. But if you're looking for big red flags in terms of authoritarian takeover and a democratic rule of law country, when you've got U.S. troops searching and arresting people and doing crowd control on U.S. soil, you're kind of there. Under American law, the Posse Comitatus Act is supposed to prevent the U.S. government from using U.S. soldiers on U.S. soil. Theoretically, if somebody wanders onto a military base, they can be arrested as trespassers. Trespassers on military property. So the idea I think here, the neat trick that Trump has pulled here is that he's just turned hundreds of miles of American soil into what is technically a military base. And so, hey presto, that's one neat trick to give the U.S. military the power to search and arrest people on U.S. soil. And right now, they're only doing it at the edges ... Donald Trump quietly has now declared that on a 170 mile strip of land across three different states, active duty U.S. soldiers now have the authority to arrest and search people. Active duty U.S. troops doing that on U.S. soil. Liza Goitein and Joseph Nunn at the Brennan Center For Justice tonight are calling this a slippery slope, saying, quote, "if soldiers are allowed to take on domestic policing roles at the border, it may become easier to justify uses of the military in the U.S. interior in the future. Our nation's founders warned against the dangers of an army turned inward, which can all too easily be turned into an instrument of tyranny." Joining us now is Liza Goitein. she's senior director of the Brennan Center's liberty and national security program. Miss Goitein, thank you so much for being here, I appreciate it. >> My pleasure. Thank you. >> Is there anything about this order that authorizes U.S. soldiers to arrest and search people or use crowd control techniques only against non-U.S. citizens? Or could these these authorities also be used against U.S. citizens? >> No, not at all. These authorities can be used against anyone who trespasses on this new military installation. And that installation does span 170 miles of the New Mexico-Mexico border. But the original memorandum actually authorizes pretty much any federal lands along the southern border to be transferred to the department of defense, including a 60 foot strip of land 60ft wide that actually spans about 600 miles along the California, Arizona, and New Mexico border. So we are talking about just sort of a massive land grab that's being turned over to the Department of Defense in order to turn violations of immigration law into trespassing on a military installation. And again, I mean, that could apply to anybody who, without authorization, is on these strips of land on the southern border. >> Yeah. I mean, I happen to think that the territorial boundaries of the United States extend all the way to the border, not just near them. And so the idea that U.S. soldiers are operating on U.S. soil with policing powers, to me, feels like every red flag in the world is sort of going off for me. I mean, we do have U.S. soldiers deployed to the border sort of all the time, acting in a support role to customs and border protection. But this is a qualitatively different legal authority, right? >> Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, what is happening here is an attempt to evade the laws passed by congress and to usurp congressional authority, starting with the Posse Comitatus Act. And that law, as you mentioned, normally prohibits federal armed forces from engaging in these core law enforcement activities. Things like arrests and searches and detentions. Now, courts have held that the military can provide indirect logistical support to law enforcement. That's what's been happening at the border for the last 20 years. But this is qualitatively different. it steps over that line and that line between the military and civilian government is one of the most important safeguards that we have for personal liberty and for democracy. Because, you know, as Joseph and I said in our piece, an army turned inward can very quickly become an instrument of tyranny and we have seen that in countries all over the world. So this is very different from what we have seen before. And it is it is an attempt to get around the Posse Comitatus Act, which ordinarily requires congress to authorize these types of activities anywhere in the country. >> Lisa Goitein, senior director of the Brennan Center's liberty and national security program. This is a story that we are just starting to cover. This will not be the last time we cover it."

(End of transcript.)

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