US President Donald Trump, during a meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, was asked whether he intended to use the 1807 law, which allows the use of active troops to suppress rebellions and riots.
— It was already used in the past, as you know. “If you look at Chicago, Chicago is a great city with a lot of crime, and if the governor can't do the job, we'll do the job,” Trump replied. – They've probably had 50 homicides in Chicago over the last five, six, seven months, a lot of people shot. Then the governor comes and says: “we can take care of it.” They can't, he added.
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Donald Trump wants to quell riots in the US. George Bush recently used the act
Trump's words are another announcement of the possible use of troops in American cities in a broader way than before. The Insurrection Act has been used many times in U.S. history to suppress riots using the National Guard or regular military. The last time it was invoked by President George Bush Jr. was in 1992 to pacify race riots in Los Angeles in 1992. One of the most famous cases was Dwight Eisenhower's use of the act to enable racial desegregation of schools in Arkansas. John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson also intervened in similar circumstances.
On Monday, Republican Governor of Texas Greg Abbott declared his readiness to send Texas National Guard troops to Chicago. Illinois Governor Jay Robert Pritzker, a Democrat, appealed to the court, but so far the court has not decided to stop sending troops, as it did in the case of attempts to deploy Guard troops in Portland, where protests against ICE, the service responsible for deporting immigrants, are ongoing. Pritzker on Monday accused the Trump administration of trying to create a pretext for a broader military intervention in his state.
— The Trump administration is following this plan: create chaos, sow fear and confusion, and give the impression that peaceful protesters are a violent mob by shooting them with tear gas and grenades. What for? To create an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act, said Jay Robert Pritzker.
Under the law, without invoking the Insurrection Act, troops under federal control can only be used to protect federal property and officials, not to suppress protests. So far, Donald Trump's administration has declared the use of troops in such a limited role.
