U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem reportedly requested that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth grant law enforcement powers—including the authority to detain and arrest—to the thousands of military troops President Donald Trump deployed to Los Angeles to suppress anti-deportation protests. Such powers are typically barred under federal law, and experts warn the move marks another step toward the administration invoking the Insurrection Act.
In a memo, Secretary Noem alleged protestors included “invasive, violent, insurrectionist mobs that seek to protect invaders and military aged males belonging to identified foreign terrorist organizations, and who seek to prevent the deportation of criminal aliens,” as the San Francisco Chronicle first reported.
“The military is generally barred under federal laws from taking part in domestic law enforcement. Noem’s request may be a step toward the administration sidestepping those laws by invoking the Insurrection Act, two legal experts said in interviews,” the Chronicle added.
Syracuse University Professor of Law Emeritus William Banks told the Chronicle that Noem’s move is “a grave escalation” that “may presage the invocation of the Insurrection Act.” Professor Banks is an internationally recognized scholar on constitutional law, national security and counterterrorism law, as well as emergency powers and government surveillance and privacy, according to his biography.
Secretary Noem also requested “drone surveillance support” and weapons and logistics assistance. President Donald Trump has ordered 700 U.S. Marines and federalized up to 4,000 National Guard troops to go to Los Angeles to help tamp down the protests.
The Associated Press on Monday suggested the protest area itself was small: “Protests over the president’s immigration crackdown spared much of Los Angeles from violence. Weekend clashes swept through several downtown blocks and a handful of other places.”
Other experts weighed in as well.
Vermont Law and Graduate School professor emeritus Stephen Dycus, an expert in national security law and the Insurrection Act, told the Chronicle that “this could be viewed as a preparation for invoking the Insurrection Act, or it could be viewed as part of a larger effort to frighten people who otherwise would exercise their first amendment guarantee of free speech and protest.”
California Democratic state Senator Tom Umberg, a retired Army colonel and JAG officer, “said he found the letter’s requests alarming.”
“It looks like a preparation for a military assault,” Umberg said. “This looks like a subterfuge to create some sort of rationale for some sort of invocation of the Insurrection Act.”
Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an immigration expert and senior fellow at the American Immigration Council explained that the “reason that there is civil unrest in multiple cities throughout the country is because the Trump administration ordered ICE to engage in near-indiscriminate arrests, rounding up otherwise law-abiding people with no criminal records.”
Political scientist Dr. Norman Ornstein, a contributing editor for the Atlantic, wrote, “this is a prelude to invoking the insurrection act and declaring martial law.”