On Monday, Trump announced he would send US troops to the Mexican border to stop a caravan of migrants walking to the US from Honduras.
On Friday, Defense Secretary James Mattis authorized the deployment of more troops to the US-Mexico border.
CNN notes What the Troops Can and Can’t Do.
There’s a law that dates back more than a century known as “posse comitatus” that bars active-duty US troops from domestic law enforcement without authorization. Other laws and regulations have further clarified that troops can’t participate in activities such as making arrests and conducting searches, according to a Congressional Research Service analysis.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen told Fox News on Friday that the military has “no intention” of shooting at anyone in the caravan, but she noted that officers of her agency and troops alike have the right to defend themselves.
What the Troops Cannot Do
- Arrest people
- Seize drugs
- Conduct searches
What the Troops Can Do
- Planning assistance
- Provide engineering support with temporary barriers, barricades and fencing
- Provide aviation support to move US Customs and Border Protection personnel
- Provide medical teams to triage, treat and prepare for commercial transport of patients
- Operate command control facilities
- Erect temporary housing and provide personal protective equipment for CBP personnel
Past presidents haven’t tested these boundaries and therefore courts haven’t weighed in. The Trump administration so far has avoided questions about how exactly it interprets these restrictions.
A separate administration official on Friday told CNN that based on items laid out in a request from the Department of Homeland Security, the request would likely result in more than 1,000 troops being sent, but there’s a likelihood that number could eventually be pared back.
Unknowns
- Number of troops
- Whether the troops are armed
- Criteria in which they can use their weapons
- Cost
- Who’s paying the bill
“The Mattis Touch”
The Washington Examiner explains How Mattis Turned Trump’s Hasty Border Tweet Into Something Troops Can Salute.
Welcome to the world of Jim Mattis, the man whose job it is to turn President Trump’s impulsive orders into something the military is happy to salute.
The latest edict: Trump’s order to send active-duty troops to the Mexico border to repel the coming “onslaught” of Central American refugees seeking asylum in the United States.
“Perhaps most importantly, these troops will be plastered all over the media. It shows the administration is doing something about this issue. And by sending in the military, it shows it is a top national priority,” he said. “This president gets that optics matter to the American people and his base. Sending troops means he is taking action — the biggest action he can.”
When Trump shocked the Pentagon with his plan to scrap “expensive war games” between the U.S. and South Korea, Mattis figured out that as long as they made a show of canceling major exercises with dangerous sounding names, regular training could go on unaffected safely under the radar of Trump and the North Koreans.
When Trump — impressed by the over-the-top Bastille Day parade he witnessed in Paris — ordered his own military extravaganza down Pennsylvania Avenue, Mattis saluted smartly and then gradually pared back while finding a way to link it to the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I.
It’s notable that no Pentagon officials would comment on the record for this report, out of fear that another account of how Mattis is managing could infuriate Trump and end Mattis’ tenure as Defense secretary.
Already there are rumors that Trump is considering replacing Mattis after the midterm elections with someone more in line with his thinking.
Both Mattis and Trump have denied those rumors, yet another sign of Mattis’ unique ability stay on the president’s good side, while saving him from his most capricious ideas.
Call it “The Mattis Touch.”
On Monday I commented Caravan of 5,000 Hondurans Flock Mexican Border Hoping to Get to the US
More waves have formed and some reports have the total at 14,000 or more headed to the US.
Mike “Mish” Shedlock
“Who’s paying the bill” Who else. The same people paying for the wall: Mexico
One truism regarding immigration is this: It is impossible to have an immigration policy if you can’t control the border. Only when you can control the border can you put policies in place as to who, and how many people you wish to allow to immigrate, and who you wish to grandfather in by granting them amnesty and citizenship.
Bolton has been identified as the one ‘whispering’ about Mattis’ departure.
Republicans would face a midterm disaster if Trump did nothing about the ‘invasion’. That could mean another two years of Russiagate.
I thought Mish was supposed to be a Libertarian, but the real libertarian position on borders is that there should be no borders anywhere, but also no government (i.e. taxpayers) free handouts, especially to non-citizens. It is OBVIOUS that poor people want to leave countries with little economic opportunity and no government free stuff, and go where the free handouts are. Which is not to say that some are not willing to work, but also some are terrorists and criminals. BTW I read that some women can get refugee from violence status because they claim their husbands abuse them. Also some in the caravan have already been deported from the US.
Obama invented this that if one has an abusive spouse then one should get an asylum hearing.
Total idiocy from Obama, NO other country in the world accepts “abusive spouse” as basis for claiming asylum.
Sessions tightened the definitions and stopped this Obama idiocy and Sessions also removed similar idiocy of giving migrants asylum hearing if a gang has threatened them in Guatemala or Honduras or El Salvador etc..
Then Kansas Republican Kevin Yoder supported Democrats attempt (Price amendment by Democrat Price) to REVERSE the Sessions/Trump tightening and return to the loose and lax Obama definitions and since Yoder was in control of Appropriations Committee this stupidity passed in a voice vote with some other Republicans also voting for Democrats Price amendment.
Now Kevin Yoder had 1 million dollars in Republican party election funding pulled and he will be made an example that if a Republican supports lunacy they will be voted out.
Imagine Kansas Republican Kevin Yoder being so incompetent he thought he could stab Sessions and Trump and Trump voters in the back and still get re-elected…
Kevin Yoder is also owned by the Indian Lobby and wants to give Indians a shortcut to Greencards (thereby making it more difficult for all other nationalities to get a Greencard) and Yoder also wants to flood USA and Kansas with H1B’s to drive down American IT workers wages or make American IT workers un-employed to make way for Indians willing to work for less.
OMG that radical Trump intends to enforce our US immigration law! The horror! Where does he get this “Rule of Law” stuff anyway?
The law is people can seek asylum at any port of entry. Enforce that!
Seeking asylum does not mean they get asylum. FDR did not give asylum to Jews seeking to flee Germany ahead of World War II — and they had a much better case than anyone from Honduras has today.
Maybe he should send the troops to guard our places of worship or all the groups of people he demonizes. This is why an imbecile president like Trump embracing nationalism is a big deal. This is what nationalism looks like. I’d rather have mish’s imaginary brain disease hillary than this idiot Trump.
Trump does NOT demonize jews. Trump’s grandchildren are jewish and Trump has surrounded himself with jewish employees through his whole business life.
The crazy whackjob that did the attack HATED Trump!
“Posse comitatus” bars the US military from being used against US CITIZENS in the United States.
Using the US military to prevent an INVASION of criminal illegal invaders is not only justified, it is mandated by the US Constitution and oath of enlist.
Apply the same policy as in Syria & Yemen. Simply fly drones over them and bomb them, right? Trump’s defense can be that they’re terrorists. He’s already stated that they’re all rapists & murderers. Anyone with even half a clue can smell that this is all theater. Did anyone see the 6 pointed stars on some of the trucks that were purported to be moving some of these migrants?
Actually he said there are rapists and murderers mixed into the larger group of migrants – surely you don’t disagree with that as it is certainly 100% true.
After this, Mexico may be open to the idea of paying for a border wall… but with Guatemala
Since a comment on this disappeared earlier, let me try again:
There is a choice out there:
For obvious reasons, it is unsustainable to have both open borders and social safety net programs. Just think about the millions of people in Bangladesh who would love to have the living standards even of Honduras, let alone the US.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether it is better to enforce existing laws against illegal immigration or to eliminate social safety net programs. In a functioning Republic, there could be reasoned informed debate, followed by votes in Congress about which way to go. It is a condemnation of our Political Class (including the sob sisters in the media) that such a debate and democratic vote is not even in consideration.
Valid point, except that it is not Americans that make that decision, rather AIPAC and its home country.
If said “functioning Republic” were one with a properly limited government, as all functioning anythings by definition need to be, there would be no way to “vote” oneself to a “safety net” stolen at gunpoint from others who have to work for it.
Only unlimited governments are big enough to undertake the necessary theft, upon which arbitrary “safety nets” depend.
And furthermore, once you have laid down your arms, and granted an officially sanctioned known thief unlimited reach and power; nothing is there to stop him from taking the loot you thought were destined for you, and handing it to someone else he fancies more. Like pretty “maids” and cheap plantation labor from Guatemala.
Noone cares about you. They only say they do on TeeVee. To fool you into cheering for them as they rob you.
Unless Mexico STOPS this caravan and makes these migrants ask for asylum from Mexico or returns them back to Guatemala, Honduras etc. then ALL development aid USA gives to Mexico needs to be REMOVED, all funds transfers to Mexico need to be STOPPED (both from legal Mexican immigrants and illegal Mexican immigrants) and the US-Mexico needs to be made to a crawl and each Mexican crossing the border legally needs to be given a leaflet explaining that the border is a crawl BECAUSE Mexican government keeps allowing caravans of migrants and flows of migrants through Mexico to USA from Guatemala, Honduras etc..
Maybe Mexican government will wake up when 1 million irate and angry Mexicans whose life has been made harder complain to them to STOP allowing caravans of migrants and flows of migrants through Mexico to USA.
Right now USA should have already removed all development aid from Honduras and Guatemala and STOPPED all funds transfers from USA to Guatemala and Honduras.
Remember it is in Honduras and Guatemala’s interest to allow Hondurans and Guatemalans come to USA since almost everyone getting to USA sends funds back to their family or relatives in Guatemala and Honduras so those countries economies benefit and gangs and corrupt politicians have more money to siphon off the more Guatemalan or Honduran migrants there are in USA.
Withholding aid would simply be met with more illegals unleashed across the border.
Right now, Mexico and Central American countries send their citizens to the USA and reap huge chunks of their GDP in remittances back.
It’s like sending in a mining operation to mine the USA and send back the ore. Remittances are vastly higher than the foreign aid that hands taxpayer money to banana republics.
Kill the remittances, kill the flow of migrants.
He’s working the caravan menace as hard as he can, but they are going to show up too late for the midterm elections. Mail-a-bombs and getting shot in church are going to be heavier on people’s minds for a while.
As to the silly anonymous rumors published by the Washington Examiner — one of the primary roles of the US military is to protect the US from invasion. Division-sized bodies of mainly military-aged males seeking to enter the US illegally certainly fits within the definition of ‘invasion’. Posse comitatus is irrelevant in the face of external invasion.
I agree with you.
They can probably handle them with tear gas and surveillance drones. Mexico is probably going to regret letting them in.
Problem is, as Gandhi and Indians to demonstrated for The Raj, soldiers have limited will and stamina to stand there and shoot or club wave after wave of unarmed, nonthreatening people.
And as for the minority who may not mind, those aren’t the guys even half-civilized militaries want to hand rifles to in the first place.
This march may not end up being of the relative magnitude of what The Raj faced in India, but then again, perhaps it will grow into that….
NOBODY needs to be shot.
Catch them, tell them they can NOT leave an asylum application since they came to USA through a SAFE country (Mexico) which is a signatory to the Geneva Convention regulating refugees and either drive them on vans or buses back to Mexico and tell them to ask for asylum from Mexico OR fly them on army planes to Southern Mexico (longer walk to try again) and tell them to ask for asylum from Mexico OR fly them back home to Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua and tell them to ask for protection from gang threats or abusive spouses from their own governments.
IF you do this ONCE and tell everyone that this is the policy from now on there will be NO MORe CARAVANS.
“IF you do this ONCE and tell everyone that this is the policy from now on there will be NO MORe CARAVANS.”
Maybe. Or, if the situation down there is desperate enough, they’ll keep coming back. Everyone knows that waves of millions, like what marched on Europe a few years back, can’t logistically be “flown back.” Doubly so if those who are so treated, simply get back in line again….. Pour enough water into any dam, and it eventually breaks.
I’m not convinced Latin Americans are nearly as desperate as the Syrians who were, on short notice, bombed out of everything, were back then. So this “march” may be fairly self limiting. If so, doing as you say, may work perfectly well.
But if it doesn’t stop, it could start taking on a life of it’s own. For every convoy marching northwards, infrastructure gets built up to support them, as a wandering “market” of tens of thousands, even if poor, will entice locals to cater to them. The marchers themselves will also develop learnings each time they try. Making it cheaper and less risky to join each new convoy as time goes by.
Ultimately, net fertile populations WILL displace net barren ones. That’s just basic biology. The West were advancing starting around the renaissance, as advancing technology combined with still high fertility rates, to produce a surplus of young people seeking opportunity. Now, Westerners are dying away, leaving the lands they filled, as well as their original homelands, comparatively vacant. Providing opportunity for others to fill in the space. That WILL happen. 100 year olds, who “voted” to disarm “themselves,” will have exactly nothing to say about that, given enough time. Exactly how the world gets to this new equilibrium may not be 100% clear, but it will get there.
EVERY Syrian that came to Europe in 2015-2016 was ALREADY SAFE once they had reached Turkey so the ONLY REASON to come to Europe and travel through Europe mainly to Germany and Sweden was generous welfare money and free apartment they were given once their asylum claim was accepted and the 100% acceptance rate for Syrians as a POLITICAL CHOICE by Sweden and Germany based on Syrian nationality alone.
Refugees were nominally “safe” in Shatila as well…. As are nonrefugees supposedly in Chicago…
Compared to a worker starved Germany, Erdogan’s Turkey really is not all that, as far as practical safety for outsiders are concerned.
No doubt welfare is enticing to some as well, but even absent that, there is safe, and then there is merely “safe” as in nudge nudge wink wink. People on the ground tend to figure out, pretty quickly, where is which, despite the best efforts of progressively indoctrinated newspeakers.
Mine. The. Border.
You walkee, you blow-up-ee.
Hyperbole aside, the .mil has crowd control weapons they can use, if the decision is made to do so. Acoustics, “heat” rays, all sorts of Buck Rogers stuff.
Above all, killing remittances would stop the flow immediately.
Bolton has been identified as the one ‘whispering’ about Mattis’ departure.
Republicans would face a midterm disaster if Trump did nothing about the ‘invasion’. That could mean another two years of Russiagate.