Political Quotes

“I am also concerned about the Trump administration's dubious creation of ``National Defense Areas'' along the southern border in the last several weeks. These National Defense Areas, first designated in New Mexico and later expanded into Texas, were created when the Department of the Interior transferred land, including the Roosevelt Reservation--a 60-foot-wide strip along the border--to the Department of Defense. So now, large swaths of the border are considered military installations. The administration has created these zones so that, when a migrant crosses the border in those areas, prosecutors can charge them with both entering the United States illegally and trespassing on a military installation. In effect, the National Defense Zones evade the longstanding protections of the Posse Comitatus Act by allowing military forces to act as de facto border police, detaining migrants until they can be transferred to Customs and Border Protection. In the administration's telling, this approach permits military involvement in immigration control without invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. This is both unprecedented and, indeed, a legal fiction. Again, as the Brennan Center report found: No matter how the Trump administration frames these activities . . . they are civilian law enforcement functions. He cannot turn them into military operations by misusing the language of war.…”