Using the National Guard in DEA Raids Is the Worst Kind of Drug War Mission Creep
The Trump administration deployed National Guard soldiers to assist the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and other federal law enforcement agencies during a large-scale marijuana raid last week in a stunning example of drug war mission creep.
The Los Angeles Times reported that about 315 National Guard troops assisted the DEA during a June 18 raid on suspected illegal marijuana farms in Thermal, an unincorporated desert community on the southeast edge of Riverside County. The Defense Visual Information Distribution Service posted photographs showing soldiers carrying riot shields next to Humvees.
The raid, completely divorced by geography and purpose from the Trump administration’s original justifications for deploying troops to Los Angeles, is a compelling argument for why the president’s sweeping emergency powers should be restricted.
Writing in Just Security, Elizabeth Goitein, an expert on presidential emergency powers at the Brennan Center for Justice, said the Guard’s participation in the raids represents “an alarming escalation of President Donald Trump’s efforts to use the military as a domestic police force.”
“Based on currently available information, it appears to be illegal, as well,” Goitein continued.
Goitein wrote that, while the details of the operation are still unclear, the number of National Guard troops involved and their use as perimeter security could run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act.
The military has provided indirect support for domestic drug interdiction ope
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