Ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, U.S. military veterans say increased military presence in major U.S. cities and at the U.S.-Mexico border is a worrying shift.
On a press call, former service members said recent changes, like the deployment of active-duty Marines to Los Angeles, and the use of military personnel along the border, posed legal and moral questions for military members.
Dan Maurer is a U.S. Army veteran who served in the Army’s legal arm called the JAG Corps.
“The administration has sort of unnecessarily and provocatively deployed the military in a way that reflects the very fears our founding fathers had about using the military as a police force in all but name,” he said. “That was one of our grievances against the crown, was the British military acting as a domestic police force, and here we have President Trump essentially making America militarized again.”
Maurer said that activity likely violates a bedrock U.S. law called Posse Comitatus, which bars the use of military personnel to enforce domestic federal law.
Brandi Jones is a military veteran and the organizing director for the Secure Families Initiative, which advocates for military families. She says the military has been used at the U.S.-Mexico border since the nation’s founding.
“The Buffalo Soldiers, the descendants who were just one generation removed from enslavement, were there in that area patrolling those borders against other families who were just seeking freedom and our Indigenous communities,” she said.
Jones said those actions have historically hurt families of color, and new deployments risk the same.
Last month, the Trump administration announced plans for a new military zone along the U.S.-Mexico border in Yuma. The Arizona section comes after a similar designation in New Mexico along the 60-foot Roosevelt Reservation, where military personnel can now detain and charge migrants under a new federal trespassing law.
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