https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271700/migrant-caravan-invasion-joseph-klein
The Migrant Caravan Invasion
What our president must do to seal the border.
Joseph Klein
FTA:
President Trump has vowed to use the military to seal the southern border of the United States with Mexico, if necessary – a stretch of territory as long as 2000 miles. Aside from logistical issues, questions have been raised as to whether the president has the legal authority to take such action in enforcing U.S. immigration laws, at least with respect to utilizing active-duty members of the army, navy, air force and marines. Those who claim that the president does not have such authority cite the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, as amended from time to time, which prohibits active duty military troops from executing the country’s laws unless expressly authorized by the Constitution or an Act of Congress. This statute does not apply to the National Guard operating under state authority.
A federal court has held that the Posse Comitatus Act “makes unlawful the use of federal military troops in an active role of direct law enforcement by civil law enforcement officers,” which includes “arrest; seizure of evidence; search of a person; search of a building; investigation of crime; interviewing witnesses; pursuit of an escaped civilian prisoner; search of an area for a suspect or other like activities.” Military personnel can do little more than maintain border fences and vehicles and perhaps also assist with surveillance, including in connection with drugs smuggling, if the Posse Comitatus Act is interpreted as restrictively as open borders proponents are likely to advocate in court.
However, repelling an organized force of unvetted migrants, who may include terrorists and foreign criminal gang members, from entering this country in the first place is not simply civil domestic law enforcement. It is a military response to a genuine threat to U.S. territorial sovereignty and national security originating from foreign territories. The military response would be directed by the president of the United States who is vested with the constitutional authority of commander in chief. The president would be using the military to implement the constitutional mandate of Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution that the “United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion.”
We’ve got a whole 1st Armored Divison HQd at Ft. Bliss in El Paso. So we’ve got the force projection capability. But can the president sell that - that it’s a direct military threat, uniformed or not.