It is the first occasion that a US President has sent in the National Guard against the wishes of State authorities since Lyndon Johnson sent it to Alabama in 1965 to protect Rev Martin Luther King and other African American civil rights activists from white supremacist mobs during the Selma to Birmingham protest march. Previously President Dwight Eisenhower had sent the National Guard to Little Rock, Arkansas in 1960 to enforce a Supreme Court order to desegregate schools in that state. If nothing else, Trump’s actions are a curious inversion of the states’ rights doctrine so dear to the hearts of Republicans and conservatives in the South and Mid-West of the USA.
Overall, Trump’s federalisation of the National Guard in this way is the first occasion that a US President has used such powers since the 1992 riots also in Los Angeles which followed the acquittal of four LAPD officers of the brutal assault of African American motorist Rodney King, television footage of which was seen worldwide. On this occasion Trump signed off on the order just before his attendance at that iconic display of machismo and violence, an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC – Conor McGregor eat your heart out) in Newark, New Jersey, to send 2,000 troops on the evening of Saturday June 7th after clashes between the ICE authorities. and protestors seeking to prevent deportations.
Appalling though the spectacle and the constitutional improprieties are, the events playing out in LA have most definitely been chronicled beforehand. Trump had long promised mass immigration raids since returning to the White House on the promise of launching “the largest ever deportation programme in history” which would sweep up to twelve million “illegals.” ICE raids have consequently have increased, in particular targeting some areas traditionally left alone, such as courts where immigrants might be attending hearings.[1] The performative cruelty of such programmes, including mass deportations and head shavings of alleged Latin American gangs members to supermax prisons in El Salvador, have been gleefully broadcast to a global audience. Governor Gavin Newsom said Trump’s move was “purposefully inflammatory”; that Trump was trying to “manufacture a crisis” and urged protestors “not to rise to the bait” and responded to the threat by the Secretary of Defence, Peter Hegseth, to deploy marines to LA streets if the disturbances continued as “deranged behaviour”.[2]
But ultimately it has not been a matter of “if” Trump would deploy troops to deal with street protests like those occurring in LA but “when.” Trump’s authoritarianism has been laid bare since his return to office through his attacks on cultural institutions, law firms, media companies and universities. The “Silent Violence “of his second term; the climate of fear and intimidation has seeped into every government department, every news media outlet, every corporate boardroom, every university, and every American household.[3]
Immigration has been a key battleground between the Trump administration and the US judiciary and if the judiciary loses out in its epic conflict with Trump, then it is a fair bet that the US is on the road to untrammelled executive power in the manner of, at best, a Viktor Orban illiberal democracy and at worst a 21st century form of fascism or totalitarianism.
The contours of this struggle were laid out by Vice-President JD Vance who posted on X on 9th February: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” He then upped the ante in a podcast released on 21st May in conversation with Ross Douthat of the New York Times: “I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people. Furthermore, in Vance’s opinion, Chief Justice was failing in his supervision of the judiciary: “You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for. That’s where we are right now.”[4]
The judicial activism which has attracted such ire from the Trump administration includes the ruling by the Supreme Court that the government must give “constitutionally adequate notice” to individuals before their removal under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act ; twelve days it intervened again, in the middle of the night, to block deportations of Venezuelans from Texas under the same antediluvian statute. The court has also ruled that the administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old migrant who had been living in Maryland for 13 years, sent back to El Salvador after what the government has admitted was an “administrative error”.[5]
It is not as if the judiciary has always stonewalled Trump’s deportation agenda. On 19th May, the Supreme Court gave emergency approval to the government to lift the separate “Temporary Protected Status” from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants. Although the case is still subject to appeal, it has given the green light to immigration to proceed with mass deportation. On 30th May, the highest court in the land also afforded the Trump administration approval to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian programme to grant temporary residency to more than 500,000 migrants facing political turmoil or warfare intended to help refugees from countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, or Haiti.[6]
Yet the president and his allies remain furious with the general response of the judiciary to MAGA’s “remigration” campaign. In the afore-mentioned Garcia case, Trump and his team have opted for what the US legal scholars Leah Litman and Daniel Deacon term “legalistic non-compliance: nit picking over the precise meaning of “facilitate,” resorting to pedantry and slow-walking action commanded by the courts. With his characteristic insouciance towards the responsibilities of and the oath he took to his office, Trump feigns ignorance of legal knowledge in order to avoid giving an opinion on the even most basic points of law. So, when asked on NBC’s Meet The Press whether citizens and non-citizens alike are entitled to due process, Trump said, “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer.” When pressed by Kristen Welker on the substance of the Fifth Amendment which refers to the rights of [7]the “person” Trump replied that “It might say that – but if you’re talking about that , then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials” But on his Truth Social platform on a special Memorial Day post, he revealed his true feelings towards judges as well as unashamed ignorance and hostility to the constitutional principles of separation of powers and judicial independence when he attacked:
Overall, Trump’s federalisation of the National Guard in this way is the first occasion that a US President has used such powers since the 1992 riots also in Los Angeles which followed the acquittal of four LAPD officers of the brutal assault of African American motorist Rodney King, television footage of which was seen worldwide. On this occasion Trump signed off on the order just before his attendance at that iconic display of machismo and violence, an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC – Conor McGregor eat your heart out) in Newark, New Jersey, to send 2,000 troops on the evening of Saturday June 7th after clashes between the ICE authorities. and protestors seeking to prevent deportations.
Appalling though the spectacle and the constitutional improprieties are, the events playing out in LA have most definitely been chronicled beforehand. Trump had long promised mass immigration raids since returning to the White House on the promise of launching “the largest ever deportation programme in history” which would sweep up to twelve million “illegals.” ICE raids have consequently have increased, in particular targeting some areas traditionally left alone, such as courts where immigrants might be attending hearings.[1] The performative cruelty of such programmes, including mass deportations and head shavings of alleged Latin American gangs members to supermax prisons in El Salvador, have been gleefully broadcast to a global audience. Governor Gavin Newsom said Trump’s move was “purposefully inflammatory”; that Trump was trying to “manufacture a crisis” and urged protestors “not to rise to the bait” and responded to the threat by the Secretary of Defence, Peter Hegseth, to deploy marines to LA streets if the disturbances continued as “deranged behaviour”.[2]
But ultimately it has not been a matter of “if” Trump would deploy troops to deal with street protests like those occurring in LA but “when.” Trump’s authoritarianism has been laid bare since his return to office through his attacks on cultural institutions, law firms, media companies and universities. The “Silent Violence “of his second term; the climate of fear and intimidation has seeped into every government department, every news media outlet, every corporate boardroom, every university, and every American household.[3]
Immigration has been a key battleground between the Trump administration and the US judiciary and if the judiciary loses out in its epic conflict with Trump, then it is a fair bet that the US is on the road to untrammelled executive power in the manner of, at best, a Viktor Orban illiberal democracy and at worst a 21st century form of fascism or totalitarianism.
The contours of this struggle were laid out by Vice-President JD Vance who posted on X on 9th February: “Judges aren’t allowed to control the executive’s legitimate power.” He then upped the ante in a podcast released on 21st May in conversation with Ross Douthat of the New York Times: “I know this is inflammatory, but I think you are seeing an effort by the courts to quite literally overturn the will of the American people. Furthermore, in Vance’s opinion, Chief Justice was failing in his supervision of the judiciary: “You cannot have a country where the American people keep on electing immigration enforcement and the courts tell the American people they’re not allowed to have what they voted for. That’s where we are right now.”[4]
The judicial activism which has attracted such ire from the Trump administration includes the ruling by the Supreme Court that the government must give “constitutionally adequate notice” to individuals before their removal under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act ; twelve days it intervened again, in the middle of the night, to block deportations of Venezuelans from Texas under the same antediluvian statute. The court has also ruled that the administration must “facilitate” the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the 29-year-old migrant who had been living in Maryland for 13 years, sent back to El Salvador after what the government has admitted was an “administrative error”.[5]
It is not as if the judiciary has always stonewalled Trump’s deportation agenda. On 19th May, the Supreme Court gave emergency approval to the government to lift the separate “Temporary Protected Status” from nearly 350,000 Venezuelan migrants. Although the case is still subject to appeal, it has given the green light to immigration to proceed with mass deportation. On 30th May, the highest court in the land also afforded the Trump administration approval to revoke a Biden-era humanitarian programme to grant temporary residency to more than 500,000 migrants facing political turmoil or warfare intended to help refugees from countries like Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cuba, or Haiti.[6]
Yet the president and his allies remain furious with the general response of the judiciary to MAGA’s “remigration” campaign. In the afore-mentioned Garcia case, Trump and his team have opted for what the US legal scholars Leah Litman and Daniel Deacon term “legalistic non-compliance: nit picking over the precise meaning of “facilitate,” resorting to pedantry and slow-walking action commanded by the courts. With his characteristic insouciance towards the responsibilities of and the oath he took to his office, Trump feigns ignorance of legal knowledge in order to avoid giving an opinion on the even most basic points of law. So, when asked on NBC’s Meet The Press whether citizens and non-citizens alike are entitled to due process, Trump said, “I don’t know. I’m not, I’m not a lawyer.” When pressed by Kristen Welker on the substance of the Fifth Amendment which refers to the rights of [7]the “person” Trump replied that “It might say that – but if you’re talking about that , then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials” But on his Truth Social platform on a special Memorial Day post, he revealed his true feelings towards judges as well as unashamed ignorance and hostility to the constitutional principles of separation of powers and judicial independence when he attacked:
Judges Who Are On A Mission To Keep Murderers, Drug Dealers, Rapists, Gang Members From All Over The World In Our Country …All Protected By These Usa Hating Judges Who Suffer From An Ideology That Is Very Sick, And Very Dangerous For Our Country”.[8]
Added to this, Trump’s weaponisation of immigration law to arrest and deport international student activists and academics who have participated in pro-Palestine protest encampments on university campuses has brought about a decisive and shattering end to the era of ‘free speech’ (not of the JD Vance vintage though) in the USA (if such a golden era ever existed in reality). This is a clear message from the White House that dissenting political speech will not be tolerated and sadly university administrators appear to be doing little to protect their students out of fear of loss or reduction of federal funding and grants. It was the caving in by Columbia University to Trump’s threats and demands that motivated one academic, Professor Jason Stanley, an expert on authoritarian regimes and author of How Fascism Works, to leave his academic abode in Yale University and move to Canada – for him ‘the Ukraine of North America”[9].
More alarming still is the surge in outright intimidation of the judiciary. Since Trump’s return, unexplained pizza deliveries have been made to federal judges and their families as a way of making them know that their enemies know where they live and judges considered hostile to Trump have been “swatted”; where a hoax is made to summon a SWAT team to a particular address in the hope of traumatising who is at the location in question.[10].
A particularly outrageous development was the arrest and indictment on 25th April of Wisconsin circuit court judge Hannah Dugan for allegedly assisting an undocumented immigrant in evading arrest. 138 former judges then filed a legal argument warning that Dugan’s indictment “threatens to undermine centuries of precedent on judicial immunity, crucial for an effective judiciary”. The response of the Attorney General, Pam Bondi, could have been that of a law officer of any archetypal “Banana Republic”:
The [judges] are deranged is all I can think of. I think some of these judges think they are above the law. They are not, and we are sending a very strong message today. If you are harbouring a fugitive, we will come after you and we will prosecute you. We will find you.[11]
So in a nutshell, on Planet Trump, the law is effectively what El Presidente says it is. For that is the essential meaning of the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in July 2024 that the president himself enjoys legal immunity.
In what is becoming fast moving story, Governor Newsom has sued Trump for his “illegal” orders to deploy the National Guard and the latter has announced that hundreds of marines will be deployed to LA to deal with the unrest which the Governor is trying so desperately to dampen down by his appeals to the anti-ICE protestors to remain peaceful. Is this to be the first serious constitutional crisis of Trump 2.0. The first showdown between the White House and the governor of a key state which has the potential to become a significant power in its right should this crisis presage the ultimate break-up of the United States. Suich a scenario needs to be gamed for.
[1]1 Edward Helmore and Lauren Gambino, Trump deploys national guard on LA streets following dramatic escalation. The Guardian 9th June 2025 p.1
[2] Ibid, pp.6-7
[3] CJ Werleman. The Silent Violence of Trump’s Second Term. Byline Times. May 2025 pp. 44-45
[4] Matthew Ancona Trump against the law The New World 6th June 2025 pp.16-17
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] C.J. Werleman p.45
[10] D’Ancona p.17
[11] Ibid
In what is becoming fast moving story, Governor Newsom has sued Trump for his “illegal” orders to deploy the National Guard and the latter has announced that hundreds of marines will be deployed to LA to deal with the unrest which the Governor is trying so desperately to dampen down by his appeals to the anti-ICE protestors to remain peaceful. Is this to be the first serious constitutional crisis of Trump 2.0. The first showdown between the White House and the governor of a key state which has the potential to become a significant power in its right should this crisis presage the ultimate break-up of the United States. Suich a scenario needs to be gamed for.
[1]1 Edward Helmore and Lauren Gambino, Trump deploys national guard on LA streets following dramatic escalation. The Guardian 9th June 2025 p.1
[2] Ibid, pp.6-7
[3] CJ Werleman. The Silent Violence of Trump’s Second Term. Byline Times. May 2025 pp. 44-45
[4] Matthew Ancona Trump against the law The New World 6th June 2025 pp.16-17
[5] Ibid
[6] Ibid
[7] Ibid
[8] Ibid
[9] C.J. Werleman p.45
[10] D’Ancona p.17
[11] Ibid
⏩Barry Gilheany is a freelance writer, qualified counsellor and aspirant artist resident in Colchester where he took his PhD at the University of Essex. He is also a lifelong Leeds United supporter.
In 1982, Emma Groves had toured the United States, and spoke at public gatherings about how dangerous and lethal rubber and plastic bullets were.
ReplyDeleteThe use and effects of these projectiles, and the suffering inflicted upon the slain, the wounded and their families have been well documented in Ireland but of this the American public would be almost completely ignorant.
If a group of victims and family members could be organized to tour the States, it would be a meaningful way to remember the victims and educate the American public at the same time.
Good Article Barry. Trump represents an extreme example of the consequences of when there is no accountability for those with elite social status. And without California's invitation, Trump's current move also exposes the nonsense the gun lobby use for the freedom to own AR16s to stop the federal government overstepping its authority.
ReplyDelete