Trump to deploy National Guard to southwest border with Mexico, 'to assist Border Patrol' in fighting immigration

Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/04/04/trump-to-deploy-national-guard.html

5 Likes

To be followed soon by ordering drones to blow up that subversive Statue of Liberty?

9 Likes

Bringing in untrained amateurs to do a job best left to well funded experts whom he does not want to fund. Sounds like the entire Trump presidency distilled down to its essence.

14 Likes

My understanding was that state governors could request the national guard to perform law enforcement functions, but that the president quite specifically can’t. I gotta look this up again, but this sounds like the kind of thing that’s going to get challenged in court

ETA:

21 Likes

What’s the over/under on how long it will be before they start building camps?

7 Likes

“Deploy them,” what… indefinitely?

14 Likes

Welcome to your expanding police state. The shit you will have to remember to change back, once/if you get rid of 45, is very deep indeed.

20 Likes

Yeah, sooner or later, if this Trump show stays on, they’ll be needed to prevent people from leaving.

15 Likes

I am deafened by the silence from the “Jade Helm” military-occupation fantasists.

22 Likes

When the past two presidents deployed the National Guard on the border it was for a specific reason (whether justified or not).
As far as I can tell the Central American “caravan” is not coming, so these people being deployed will be scratching their asses and playing bird-dog in the shadow of the boarder patrol.
Phenomenal waste of time and taxpayer money.

11 Likes

Hey don’t look at me, I’m just the descendant of stolen people; none of this fuckery actually belongs to me.

I meant more like the logistics of this ‘order.’ There is no actual physical wall along the border yet; just a piecemeal of partial fences, checkposts and a hodgepodge of ICE/border agents.

Does 45 think that the officers of the national guard will go to southern borders and set up camps and just stay there as some kind of ‘living wall?’ Even though most of them only work for NP part-time on weekends, while holding down a full-time job during the work week?

And what happens when there’s an actual state of emergency where they need to be called in?

Long story short; this idea seems unfeasible as fuck.

27 Likes

It’s going to be like that “Hands Across America” event from the 80s but with M-16s.

18 Likes

Don’t you understand? Evil-doers are crossing the border as I type this!

*Of course I’m being facetious here! …I suppose absurdity begets absurdity. It’s absurd, and Trump’s mind is not getting any younger.

5 Likes

If you want to rebuff propaganda it seems like you’d get further minus the sensationlistic click-baity headline: Trump to deploy National Guard to southwest border with Mexico, ‘to assist Border Patrol’ in fighting immigration . It should read Trump to deploy National Guard to southwest border with Mexico, ‘to assist Border Patrol’ in fighting illegal border crossings.

3 Likes

7 Likes

Nielsen notes the National Guard usage is going to be handled “as it has been in the past” — contrasting with Trump’s comments yesterday that his plans were something “we really haven’t done … before.”

I love the fact that every time Trump thinks he’s come up with some brilliant, original plan, it is (when it’s not illegal), actually pretty much the status quo. I guess if one is sufficient ignorant, one can believe one is the inventor of the wheel.

Previous presidents have apparently done exactly this, so it’s actually more or less a continuation of existing policy. National Guard also aren’t restricted by Posse Comitatus, for some reason.

“The Trump administration!”

As a mixed-heritage, white-passing person, I guess this fuckery does belong to me? So, uh, yay?

The National Guard have been used for border work by previous presidents, so I’m wondering how that worked exactly and whether this will be any different. Doesn’t sound like it. I’m sure it’ll be end up being equally temporary.

11 Likes

Hands Across One Specific Stretch Of America

10 Likes

Sorry, man; that’s my go to response for when anyone who isn’t American comes at me with “YOUR country, YOUR government, YOUR officials, YOUR policies, etc” as if I or any of the other millions of “minorities” here have any actual control over that shit.

Especially not when the-powers-that-be have and continue to go out of their way to make it very clear that when they speak of ‘real Americans’ they absolutely don’t mean us.

15 Likes

Of course not. Trump will deploy the National Guard for a week, then send them home. He will either declare victory, or will forever claim the “military” is still there on the border, preventing poor Mexican peasants from stealing our brain surgery jobs.

Here’s the thing, though: Trump is contradicting himself. One the one hand, he has greatly reduced illegal immigration through his magnificence. On the other, we need the wall more than ever because brown people are sneaking through in greater numbers. Yes, he has argued both, just not in the same speech. Yet.

9 Likes

Massing troops on a border is a provocative act.

15 Likes