Can anyone explain to me how the 1807 Insurrection Act and the Posse Comitatus Act can exist simultaneously? The former letting national military act against US citizens, and the former disallowing it?
Obviously that’s an oversimplification, but Trump threatening to send in the troops against protesters has various people arguing the legal merits of one or the other.
After the general question has gotten a reasonably objective answer, we can move it to another forum for debate about the current event if need be.
This Twitter thread (click on “Show This Thread” link in the top post to see it all) suggests Posse Comitatus Act does not stop the president from using the Insurrection Act (he can deploy the military to US cities). Others say it does.
Seems to me, when there is ambiguity like this, the president will get to define things as he sees fit.
Let’s say China suddenly establishes a military alliance with Mexico and builds an Army Base in Ensenada, just a few miles south of the border with the US.
One day Chinese tanks and military personal start rolling toward San Diego.
Are you telling us that staging US military troops and equipment along the California border (inside the United States) would be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act and thus illegal?
Posse Comitatus Act is there to prevent the federal government from using federal troops to enforce state laws. It also does not apply to the National Guard in each state.
They are free to deploy to face a foreign invasion. Always have been.
I think the US Coast Guard is exempt too (not sure).
As a GQ matter, it looks very simple to me. The Posse Commitatus Act (18 USC 1385) prohibits the use of the military as posse commitatus “except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress.”
The Insurrection Act is an Act of Congress expressly authorizing the use of the military in certain circumstances.
Does the Insurrection Act provide too big an exception? That’s a legislative question. But I don’t understand how you think they couldn’t exist simultaneously. It’s (on a basic level) like any other set of statutes that say “Unless otherwise provided, you can’t do X” and “Here are some situations you can do X”.