What is happening in Los Angeles is not law enforcement, it’s occupation

The scenes unfolding successful Los Angeles should alarm each American who values law governance. Federal troops person been deployed to a large American metropolis not successful effect to an insurrection oregon earthy disaster, but to suppress protests against migration enforcement operations. The full of downtown Los Angeles has been declared an “unlawful assembly area”.

This represents a unsafe escalation that threatens the precise foundations of the US antiauthoritarian system.

What began arsenic regular raids by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) connected June 6 rapidly spiralled into thing acold much ominous. Federal agents swept done Los Angeles, detaining 121 individuals from restaurants, stores and flat buildings. The raids were conducted successful wide daylight, with a calculated boldness that seemed designed to provoke.

The community’s effect was swift. By the afternoon, protesters had gathered downtown, not arsenic rioters but arsenic a grieving community, holding signs and chanting “Set them free!”.

This was grief made public, choler fixed voice. But successful today’s America, adjacent peaceful displays of grief and choler are not allowed erstwhile they spell against the communicative acceptable by those successful power.

The constabulary responded with force. Tear state canisters flew. Flash-bang grenades exploded. A peaceful objection transformed into a battlefield — not due to the fact that protesters chose violence, but due to the fact that the authorities did.

US President Donald Trump decided to escalate further. He signed a memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth threatening to mobilise active-duty Marines if protests continued.

The legality of these actions is questionable astatine best. Under the Insurrection Act, national troops tin lone beryllium deployed aft a nationalist proclamation calls for citizens to disperse. Such a proclamation has not been made, and Trump has not invoked the act. Governor Gavin Newsom, who has the powerfulness to determine connected matters of information successful the authorities of California, was not consulted; helium was simply informed.

There is nary wide rebellion threatening the authorization of the United States. There are nary force combatants successful Los Angeles, conscionable angry, grieving radical demanding dignity for their communities. What we’re witnessing is not the lawful execution of national authorization but improvisation masquerading arsenic exertion of law, the dilatory erosion of law order, replaced by declaration, spectacle, and muscle.

If challenged successful court, this deployment would apt beryllium deemed illegal. But that whitethorn not substance – and that is the astir chilling facet of this crisis. We are accelerated moving towards a spot wherever illegality nary longer matters, wherever musculus has arrived with oregon without paperwork, and instrumentality is simply a facade.

This infinitesimal cannot beryllium understood successful isolation. As student Aime Cesaire observed successful his investigation of colonialism, unit successful the periphery inevitably returns to the metropole. The tools of oppression developed overseas ever find their mode home.

In the US, this has been a decades-long process. In 1996, a proviso successful the National Defense Authorization Act allowed the Pentagon to transportation surplus military-grade weaponry to section constabulary departments. In the pursuing 3 decades, the aforesaid weapons that were utilized for imperialist unit overseas were transferred to constabulary departments to deploy successful mediocre and marginalised communities.

Then with the commencement of the “war connected terror”, tactics to people and subjugate overseas populations were transferred astatine location to usage against susceptible communities. Congress passed sweeping laws similar the USA PATRIOT Act and amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enabling wide surveillance and quality gathering connected US soil.

The 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Terrorists allowed for indefinite subject detention of US citizens, portion a Supreme Court ruling successful Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project expanded the “material support” doctrine to criminalise adjacent peaceful engagement with blacklisted groups.

Programmes similar Countering Violent Extremism (CVE) turned schools and mosques into surveillance hubs, targeting Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities.

While extracurricular the US authorities was pursuing a run of renditions, torture and amerciable detention astatine Guantanamo Bay, astatine home, it was deploying lawfare against “suspect” communities.

The 2008 Holy Land Foundation proceedings introduced “secret evidence” successful a US transgression tribunal for the archetypal time, with an anonymous Israeli quality serviceman claiming helium could “smell Hamas” connected defendants. Georgia’s prosecution of Cop City protesters nether “terrorism” charges straight borrowed from this playbook, arsenic did Tennessee’s Bill HB 2348, which extends policing powers to suppress peaceful protests.

After October 2023, the US authorities violated its ain laws successful bid to enactment straight successful the genocide successful Gaza, providing Israel with weapons and intelligence. The wide repression and erasure that Palestinians had suffered astatine the hands of their US-backed colonisers were transferred connected American soil.

The authorities launched an unprecedented onslaught connected escaped code and world freedom, cracking down connected students protesting the genocide and encouraging retribution against pro-Palestinian voices. We’ve seen tenure revoked, protesters surveilled, and dissent criminalised. Palestinians and their allies person endured a fourfold summation successful harassment, doxing, and employment loss; they person besides faced convulsive attacks and murder.

All this started not nether Trump, but nether his “Democratic” predecessor, erstwhile US President Joe Biden, who besides accrued the fund of constabulary departments by $13bn and expanded ICE’s powers.

The signifier is clear: repressive measures developed to people overseas populations person go tools to suppress each dissent astatine home.

What is happening successful Los Angeles and different cities isn’t astir instrumentality enforcement; it’s astir powerfulness projection, astir demonstrating that defiance volition beryllium met with overwhelming unit and quashed.

The ineligible model matters little than the spectacle. When national agents occurrence flash-bang grenades astatine protesters extracurricular Home Depot stores, erstwhile ICE directors impeach mayors of siding with “chaos and lawlessness”, erstwhile FBI officials tweet astir hunting down stone throwers, we’re watching the operation of a communicative that justifies authorities violence.

This is however brushed coups unfold: not with tanks rolling down Pennsylvania Avenue, but done enforcement memos, property briefings, and subject logistics disguised arsenic nationalist safety. The Insurrection Act becomes a dormant missive not done repeal but done irrelevance.

If this precedent stands, national troops volition go the modular effect to resistance. Cities that don’t ballot for the president volition look occupation. Protest volition beryllium redefined arsenic rebellion. The adjacent clip radical stitchery successful the streets demanding justice, they volition not look constabulary officers but soldiers.

When a president tin deploy troops without pursuing the law, and nary 1 stops him, instrumentality loses its power. It becomes theatre, a facade for a strategy that has abandoned its ain principles.

At this time, we don’t request conscionable ineligible challenges, we request motivation clarity. What’s happening successful Los Angeles is not instrumentality enforcement: it’s occupation. What’s being called an insurrection is really absorption to injustice. What’s being framed arsenic nationalist information is really governmental intimidation.

American imperialism has created the infrastructure for precisely this moment. The tools of empire, tested connected peoples successful the Global South, are present being deployed against American cities. If we don’t recognise this infinitesimal for what it is – a cardinal battle connected law governance – we volition aftermath up successful a state wherever imperial subject unit is the superior connection of politics.

The US Constitution is lone arsenic beardown arsenic our willingness to support it. In Los Angeles, that defence begins now.

The views expressed successful this nonfiction are the author’s ain and bash not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.