President Trump is reportedly thinking about using an obscure federal statute to remove illegal aliens from the United States.
Multiple senior administration officials have told the Daily Caller that the president may invoke the “tremendous powers” of the Insurrection Act, which would allow the U.S. military to help with deportation efforts.
The Insurrection Act states:
Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.
“We’re doing the Insurrection Act,” one official told the Caller.
“If you take a ship and it holds 1,000 people maximum — one more person and the ship is going to collapse,” the official said. “The country is full.”
“Our hospitals are full, our detention centers are full,” they added.
Under the Insurrection Act of 1807, the president has the authority to use the National Guard and military in order to combat “unlawful obstruction or rebellion” within U.S. borders. The act was last invoked in 1992 by George H.W. Bush to quell the Los Angeles riots, and was also used by Eisenhower in 1957 to enforce school desegregation in the south.
An official expressed concerns that Trump’s use of the act’s powers would face legal challenges, pointing to the lawsuits against the president’s travel ban from majority-Muslim countries. However, as the official noted, the travel ban ultimately prevailed in the Supreme Court.
In addition to the Insurrection Act, the president is also considering declaring the country full and insisting that the U.S. can no longer handle the massive influx of illegal immigrants. 2019 is currently on pace to reach the highest levels of illegal immigration in a decade.
When asked Friday morning on Fox and Friends about the possibility that Trump will invoke the act, White House deputy principal press secretary Hogan Gidley would not definitively say whether or not the president will use its powers. He told the hosts that the president will “do everything in his power to protect the nation.”
Host Steve Doocy pressed: “Is that a yes or a no?”
“He’s going to do everything within his legal authority to protect the American people and the families of this country,” Gidley replied.
“That’s a yes!” Doocy and Brian Kilmeade agreed as the studio audience cheered.
Gidley added that the president has “lots of tools at his disposal.”
“What’s so sad is that we’re getting to this point in the first place,” Gidley said. “We can fix this now with Congress, we can fix this in a lasting way that protects the American people. We’ve got to do it.”
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