Elizabeth Goitein

The lawlessness and violence is overwhelmingly coming from ICE.

Yes, some protesters have crossed the line into unlawful conduct, things like throwing objects at officers or

And the police have responded.

The police have made arrests.

But the level of, I guess, misconduct by the protesters is well within the levels that state and local law enforcement can handle.

This is not a situation in which deploying the military is necessary.

And really, in this case...

The military would be deployed not for the purpose of quelling violence and lawlessness, but for the purpose of enabling the violence and lawlessness that we are seeing from ICE.

I'm talking about smashing car windows, ramming vehicles, forcibly entering homes using a battering ram without a warrant.

These are all things that have been filmed online.

And we know they're happening.

And that is what the military would be deployed to protect.

That is an abuse of the Insurrection Act.

It would be.

Well, he might try to claim that he has an inherent constitutional right to deploy the military to protect federal personnel and property.

That is something that the administration has argued in other cases.

It is a longstanding position of the executive branch that there is such an inherent constitutional power.

However, no court has ever squarely endorsed that.

And so I believe he would be on very tenuous legal ground to rely on this inherent constitutional power.

Moreover, even if there were such an inherent power, it would still be subject to the Posse Comitatus Act.