The Situation: Twenty-One Things That Are True in Los Angeles

The Situation on Friday asked whether President Trump’s power to keep Harvard students out of the country is meaningfully reviewable by the courts.

Over the weekend, the president—getting bad press from his blood feud with Elon Musk—decided to take on Democratic elected officials in Los Angeles and send national guard troops and Marines to deal with anti-ICE protesters in the city.

The following are 21 statements I believe to be simultaneously true of the current situation in city of angels:

1. ICE officers have the legal authority to locate and detain aliens who are in the country unlawfully.
2. Not all lawful exercises of authority are wise, prudent, or smart.
3. Not all lawful exercises of authority are politically popular within communities affected by them.
4. Thus, to say that ICE has the legal authority to detain large numbers of people in Los Angeles is not to say doing so in the face of community opposition is wise, prudent or smart. The presence of community opposition to this law enforcement activity is not surprising.
5. Political demonstrations against ICE operations are a wholly appropriate means of showing community anger and frustration at the administration’s choices of how to deploy law enforcement resources.
6. Throwing rocks, burning Waymo cars, and committing other forms of violence are not legitimate forms of political expression. These are dangerous acts that threaten people’s safety and property. They are also crimes.
7. Not all crimes require a federal response. Normally, people throwing rocks or burning cars in Los Angeles are handled by local authorities, though admittedly, the feds tend to take very seriously attacks on federal officers designed to impede federal law enforcement functions.
8. Not all crimes and situations of lawlessness that do require a federal response require the deployment of the national guard. Most simply require federal investigation and prosecution.
9. Not all situations of lawlessness that do require deployment of the national guard require the deployment of active duty Marines.
10. As a general matter, the deployment of the national guard by the president requires the consent of a state’s governor.
11. Presidential deployment of the national guard over the objection of a governor can lawfully take place only—of relevance here—during actual or threatened rebellion against the United States. (See this excellent piece by Chris Mirasola.)
12. Scattered acts of violence in the course of protests against ICE activities is something less than a rebellion. It is something less than a threatened rebellion.
13. It is also something notably less than a “violent insurrectionist mob,” as the president—who knows a little something about violent, insurrectionist mobs—is very well aware.
14. The deployment of national guard or active duty troops in an American city to put down a rebellion or insurrection that isn’t happening, even if lawful, risks antagonizing people already offended by ICE actions they consider excessive. See points (2), (3), and (4).
15. Such actions sometimes lead to tragic and unnecessary confrontations that give rise to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young songs. 
16. Avoiding tragic and unnecessary confrontations is generally desirable.
17. It is thus unwise, imprudent, and stupid to take actions for performative reasons that one might reasonably anticipate would increase the risks of such confrontations.
18. A president who insists on conducting aggressive ICE operations in a city that plainly wants a lighter touch and who then responds to scattered acts of violence by putting troops in the streets and risking greater confrontation, one might worry, is less interested in ensuring law and order than he is in putting on a show of domination.
19. Such a president will increase these worries when he tweets things like this in response to alleged spitting incidents from the protesters: “‘If they spit, we will hit.’ This is a statement from the President of the United States concerning the catastrophic Gavin Newscum inspired Riots going on in Los Angeles. The Insurrectionists have a tendency to spit in the face of the National Guardsmen/women, and others. These Patriots are told to accept this, it’s just the way life runs. But not in the Trump Administration. IF THEY SPIT, WE WILL HIT, and I promise you they will be hit harder than they have ever been hit before. Such disrespect will not be tolerated!”
20. It takes discipline—extreme discipline—among protesters to deny the president of the United States violence when he’s so clearly itching for it.
21. We should all hope the protesters show more discipline than the president has shown.

The Situation continues tomorrow.