Source: Brennan Center for Justice
by Elizabeth Goitein & Joseph Nunn
“U.S. President Donald Trump has turned a 60-foot-wide strip of federal land that spans three states on the southern border into a ‘military installation’ to ‘address the emergency’ he previously declared over unlawful immigration and drug trafficking. Trump’s memo authorizing this action seems designed to sidestep the Posse Comitatus Act, which normally bars federal armed forces from conducting domestic law enforcement. The apparent plan is to let the military act as a de facto border police force, with soldiers apprehending, searching, and detaining people who cross the border unlawfully. This move could have alarming implications for democratic freedoms. Moreover, it continues a pattern of the president stretching his emergency powers past their limits to usurp the role of Congress and bypass legal rights. He has misused a law meant to address economic emergencies to set tariffs on every country in the world.” (05/03/25)