The scenes unfolding in Los Angeles ought to alarm each American who values constitutional governance. Federal troops have been deployed to a significant American metropolis not in response to an rebellion or pure catastrophe, however to suppress protests in opposition to immigration enforcement operations. The entire of downtown Los Angeles has been declared an “illegal meeting space”.
This represents a harmful escalation that threatens the very foundations of the US democratic system.
What started as routine raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on June 6 shortly spiralled into one thing much more ominous. Federal brokers swept via Los Angeles, detaining 121 people from eating places, shops and residence buildings. The raids had been performed in broad daylight, with a calculated boldness that appeared designed to impress.
The neighborhood’s response was swift. By the afternoon, protesters had gathered downtown, not as rioters however as a grieving neighborhood, holding indicators and chanting “Set them free!”.
This was grief made public, anger given voice. However in in the present day’s America, even peaceable shows of grief and anger will not be allowed once they go in opposition to the narrative set by these in energy.
The police responded with pressure. Tear gasoline canisters flew. Flash-bang grenades exploded. A peaceable demonstration remodeled right into a battlefield — not as a result of protesters selected violence, however as a result of the federal government did.
US President Donald Trump determined to escalate additional. He signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 Nationwide Guard troops to Los Angeles, with Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth threatening to mobilise active-duty Marines if protests continued.
The legality of those actions is questionable at finest. Beneath the Riot Act, federal troops can solely be deployed after a public proclamation requires residents to disperse. Such a proclamation has not been made, and Trump has not invoked the act. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has the ability to resolve on issues of safety within the state of California, was not consulted; he was merely knowledgeable.
There isn’t any widespread rise up threatening the authority of the US. There are not any enemy combatants in Los Angeles, simply offended, grieving folks demanding dignity for his or her communities. What we’re witnessing just isn’t the lawful execution of federal authority however improvisation masquerading as utility of regulation, the gradual erosion of constitutional order, changed by declaration, spectacle, and muscle.
If challenged in court docket, this deployment would possible be deemed unlawful. However that won’t matter – and that’s the most chilling facet of this disaster. We’re fast paced in the direction of a spot the place illegality now not issues, the place muscle has arrived with or with out paperwork, and regulation is merely a facade.
This second can’t be understood in isolation. As scholar Aime Cesaire noticed in his evaluation of colonialism, violence within the periphery inevitably returns to the metropole. The instruments of oppression developed overseas at all times discover their method house.
Within the US, this has been a decades-long course of. In 1996, a provision within the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act allowed the Pentagon to switch surplus military-grade weaponry to native police departments. Within the following three a long time, the identical weapons that had been used for imperialist violence overseas had been transferred to police departments to deploy in poor and marginalised communities.
Then with the beginning of the “battle on terror”, techniques to focus on and subjugate overseas populations had been transferred at house to make use of in opposition to susceptible communities. Congress handed sweeping legal guidelines just like the USA PATRIOT Act and amendments to the International Intelligence Surveillance Act, enabling mass surveillance and intelligence gathering on US soil.
The 2001 Authorization for Use of Navy Pressure In opposition to Terrorists allowed for indefinite navy detention of US residents, whereas a Supreme Courtroom ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Regulation Undertaking expanded the “materials assist” doctrine to criminalise even peaceable engagement with blacklisted teams.
Programmes like Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) turned faculties and mosques into surveillance hubs, concentrating on Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities.
Whereas exterior the US authorities was pursuing a marketing campaign of renditions, torture and unlawful detention at Guantanamo Bay, at house, it was deploying lawfare in opposition to “suspect” communities.
The 2008 Holy Land Basis trial launched “secret proof” in a US prison court docket for the primary time, with an nameless Israeli intelligence officer claiming he might “odor Hamas” on defendants. Georgia’s prosecution of Cop Metropolis protesters beneath “terrorism” expenses immediately borrowed from this playbook, as did Tennessee’s Invoice HB 2348, which extends policing powers to suppress peaceable protests.
After October 2023, the US authorities violated its personal legal guidelines in an effort to take part immediately within the genocide in Gaza, offering Israel with weapons and intelligence. The mass repression and erasure that Palestinians had suffered by the hands of their US-backed colonisers had been transferred on American soil.
The federal government launched an unprecedented assault on free speech and tutorial freedom, cracking down on college students protesting the genocide and inspiring retribution in opposition to pro-Palestinian voices. We’ve seen tenure revoked, protesters surveilled, and dissent criminalised. Palestinians and their allies have endured a fourfold enhance in harassment, doxing, and employment loss; they’ve additionally confronted violent assaults and homicide.
All this began not beneath Trump, however beneath his “Democratic” predecessor, former US President Joe Biden, who additionally elevated the finances of police departments by $13bn and expanded ICE’s powers.
The sample is obvious: repressive measures developed to focus on overseas populations have change into instruments to suppress all dissent at house.
What is occurring in Los Angeles and different cities isn’t about regulation enforcement; it’s about energy projection, about demonstrating that defiance can be met with overwhelming pressure and quashed.
The authorized framework issues lower than the spectacle. When federal brokers fireplace flash-bang grenades at protesters exterior Residence Depot shops, when ICE administrators accuse mayors of siding with “chaos and lawlessness”, when FBI officers tweet about looking down rock throwers, we’re watching the development of a story that justifies state violence.
That is how gentle coups unfold: not with tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, however via govt memos, press briefings, and navy logistics disguised as public security. The Riot Act turns into a lifeless letter not via repeal however via irrelevance.
If this precedent stands, federal troops will change into the usual response to resistance. Cities that don’t vote for the president will face occupation. Protest can be redefined as rise up. The following time folks collect within the streets demanding justice, they won’t face cops however troopers.
When a president can deploy troops with out following the regulation, and nobody stops him, regulation loses its energy. It turns into theatre, a facade for a system that has deserted its personal rules.
Right now, we don’t want simply authorized challenges, we’d like ethical readability. What’s taking place in Los Angeles just isn’t regulation enforcement: it’s occupation. What’s being referred to as an rebellion is definitely resistance to injustice. What’s being framed as public security is definitely political intimidation.
American imperialism has created the infrastructure for precisely this second. The instruments of empire, examined on peoples within the International South, at the moment are being deployed in opposition to American cities. If we don’t recognise this second for what it’s – a basic assault on constitutional governance – we’ll get up in a rustic the place imperial navy pressure is the first language of politics.
The US Structure is simply as robust as our willingness to defend it. In Los Angeles, that defence begins now.
The views expressed on this article are the creator’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.