The government creates crises to justify extremism

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Washington, DC – Below is a column by Maribel Hastings from America’s Voice en Español translated to English from Spanish. It ran in several Spanish-language media outlets earlier this week:

Although federal judges have blocked Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Democratic-led cities such as Chicago and Portland, there is growing fear that the president’s next step will be to invoke the Insurrection Act, even though he lacks the legal basis to do so.

Trump remains defiant despite legal and constitutional objections to his plan to militarize Democratic cities where he claims there are “enemies within.” Under the guise of combating undocumented immigration and crime, the administration wants to normalize the militarization of cities, with adverse results.

There is greater insecurity, especially for people of color, even if they are citizens, due to indiscriminate arrests carried out by masked ICE agents who act with violence and impunity.

In fact, federal judge Sara Ellis prohibited ICE agents from using force against protesters and journalists who do not pose a threat. Ellis argued that the agents’ actions “clearly violate the Constitution.”

Not even religious leaders are exempt from ICE violence. One of the plaintiffs who petitioned the court to restrict the use of force is Presbyterian Reverend David Black, who was shot with pepper balls by ICE agents, one of which hit him in the head. The pastor fell to his knees. “We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

Trump’s policies are also fertile ground for the criminality he claims to be fighting because law enforcement agencies have been reassigned to immigration tasks, neglecting the fight against crimes such as child exploitation, tax fraud, and drug trafficking, among many others.

That’s not to mention the severe cuts to law enforcement agencies endorsed by this administration.

For example, the fiscal year 2026 budget cuts $1 billion from 40 Justice Department grant programs that seek to reduce violent crime, hate crimes, and crimes against women; it cuts $468 million from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF), which affects the fight against firearms trafficking and the reduction of gun violence. It also cuts $646 million from FEMA for violence and terrorism prevention; $545 million from the FBI, and eliminates 2,000 employees; as well as $212 million from the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

In other words, the Trump administration criticizes Democratic cities for their crime rates but takes away their funds to combat them. Then it claims that the National Guard must be sent in to take control and dispatch ICE agents, who end up causing violence and chaos.

It’s like intentionally starting a fire, putting it out, and then acting like a hero. It’s creating a crisis to justify severe measures that undermine the rights and protections of all of us.

Currently, the legal battle is over activating the National Guard in cities and states that have not requested it, as they do not consider it necessary. In fact, in the protests generated by the presence of ICE, it has been the agents themselves who have created situations of violence by firing pepper balls and tear gas indiscriminately.

Then, Trump calls the protesters “insurrectionists,” and there are fears that he will invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807, enacted by then-President Thomas Jefferson. This law allows the president to deploy the military domestically to combat an insurrection that threatens the population.

This law was invoked 30 times, especially in the 1960s amid the bloody struggle for civil rights, to protect activists. In 1992, President George H. W. Bush invoked it amid riots in Los Angeles over the acquittal of police officers charged with brutally beating Rodney King.

“If I had to enact it, I’d do that,” Trump said. “If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I’d do that,” added Trump.

But former federal prosecutor Shanlon Wu told Newsweek magazine that it’s not just about invoking it, but justifying its use. Although Trump “enjoys the theoretical legal authority to invoke it, he seems utterly lacking in factual basis to support his use of it,” Wu said.

The fact is that there is no insurrection underway, only one invented by the president, who instigated the most recent one on January 6, 2021, when his supporters violently attempted to prevent the certification of the presidential election he lost to Joe Biden.

The original Spanish version is here.