North Chicago – On behalf of President Donald Trump, Director Of Homeland Security Kristi Noem submitted a request to use Great Lakes Naval Technical Training Center in North Chicago as a base of operations for the intended federal intervention into Chicago. Trump has been injecting US military into cities led by elected democratic mayors.
Noem’s request seeks “limited support in the form of facilities, infrastructure, and other logistical needs to support DHS operations.” This would involve living quarters, vehicle parking and storage for ICE units as well as national guard troops.
Naval Station Great Lakes is sprawling facility occupying 1600 acres. It is the Navy’s only boot camp and is the location where thousands of personnel are trained each year. It certainly has a substantial amount of living quarters and other facilities.
Since June when Trump sent US Marines and commandeered California Nation Guard Units into the streets of Los Angeles, he has embarked on a campaign of continued use of the military on US soil. In another controversial move, Trump recently deployed thousands of Guard troops to patrol Washington DC. The troops were mostly stationed for visibility in tourists areas and can be seen picking up trash, which is normally done by Park District personnel but they were cut from 1000 employees to 20 . The guard troops comes at a cost of over $1 million dollars per day.
It is questionable if Trump has the legal authority for using active duty military and guard troops domestically and for this purpose. It stands in stark contradiction to posse comitatus.
Trump’s strategy has been to declare an emergency to justify the use of the troops. Putting troops in the streets where no actual emergency exists and against the wishes of governors is clear authoritarianism.
U.S. Army officials planning an operation in MacArthur Park during the June deployment in Los Angeles determined that using troops to protect agents carrying out Trump’s immigration crackdown posed an “extremely high” risk to civilians, troops and the military’s reputation, according to an internal document.
Former Army Secretary Louis Caldera said, “Trump has broken a lot of norms. His predecessors would not use the military in this way.”
It is clear that Trump’s objective is to get Americans to accept the domestic use of the military. There is a raft of dangers associated with so doing. In third world countries, the military and secret police act internally at the desire and direction of the leader. This makes the military loyalty to the leader, not the public. It also makes the leader powerful. That is not how it is supposed to be here in the United States. The military is one of America’s most respected institutions which is dedicated to the protection of America from foreign threats. To use the troops for domestic purposes as is being done by Trump is the polar opposite of how it should be and comprises a very slippery slope.
It doesn’t matter what your political beliefs are. This is a threat to who we are as a nation.