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Abstract: President Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke extensive national powers under the Insurrection Acts to quell “rebellions” and other purported threats to public health and safety in response to repeated acts of civil unrest largely in response to immigration practices via federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) across urban areas. To date, President Trump has failed to actually unleash armed forces of the U.S. military. That U.S. Presidents can abate insurrections or rebellions is unquestionable. What distinguishes President Trump’s willingness to invoke these authorities is that his own administration’s aggressive actions through ICE agents are a primary source of civil unrest in Minneapolis and other cities hosting mass demonstrations. Wielding insurrection powers under these domestic circumstances is largely unprecedented and unlawful. Legislative and judicial approaches to Presidential invocations of insurrection authorities have largely been viewed as “hands off.” Even if Congress and SCOTUS defer extensively to Presidential discretion in the invocation of insurrection powers, historic and modern judgements from the Court suggest there are, in fact, constitutional restraints to execution of military powers against civil populations. The Constitution is not cast aside during rebellions or other strife. If anything, its principles take primacy to protect Americans from sheer acts of presidential despotism that perhaps only SCOTUS can prevent.
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