A US Supreme Court Justice appears to have signalled that Donald Trump could use an act from 1807 to deploy troops to US cities.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh, along with other members of the Supreme Court, rejected the President’s appeal to send further ‘forces’ to Chicago, which has been in Trump’s line of fire since he retook office in January.
ICE has already been deployed in Chicago, where its officers have faced pushback from locals.
Raids on illegal immigrants are a key focal point of Trump’s second term in office, and the government has made it clear that it’s a priority for them.
But it was the footnote of Justice Kavanaugh’s opinion statement written about the ruling this week that raised eyebrows.
Kavanaugh wrote that the ruling ‘does not address the president’s authority under the Insurrection Act.’
The Insurrection Act, introduced in 1807, gives a President the authority to deploy the military to suppress civil unrest or enforce the law.
Kavanaugh observed: ‘The court’s opinion does not address or purport to disturb the president’s long-asserted Article II authority to use the U.S. military [as distinct from the National Guard] to protect federal personnel and property and thereby ensure the execution of federal law.’
He added: ‘One ramification is… it could cause the president to use the U.S. military more than the National Guard to protect federal personnel and property in the United States.’
The White House has denied that Trump would invoke the act, with spokesperson Abigail Jackson saying the administration is ‘working day in and day out to safeguard the American public.’
Previously, Trump has admitted that he would invoke the controversial act if needed.
‘We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,’ he told reporters in October.
‘If people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.’
The act was last invoked in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, which broke out when four LAPD officers were acquitted after beating Black man Rodney King.
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