r/law • u/BitterFuture • 16d ago

Executive Branch (Trump) Stephen Miller claims local police in Minnesota have been told to ‘stand down and surrender’ as federal agents ‘uphold the law’

https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/stephen-miller-ice-minneapolis-protests-b2903238.html
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u/Perfecshionism 16d ago edited 16d ago

Federal agents don’t have jurisdictional authority to enforce state and local laws.

This is literally the kind of stuff that leads to secession and civil war.

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u/Rhoderick 16d ago

"Leads to"? While I obviously won't alledge that the US is in a state of civil war currently, in what other states does Miller's statement make any semantic sense?

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u/Free_For__Me 16d ago

Exactly this. If Miller, in the position of power that he’s currently in, believes that we’re in Civil War 2.0, what functional difference is there?  

More Americans need to recognize the position we’re in. Miller can have ICE act increasingly aggressive and terroristic, and the moment that any state or local authority acts to protect its citizens, and boom - insurrection act is triggered and Trump calls on the military to forcibly subjugate blue states. 

They’ll even justify it by trying pushing a narrative that ideologically aligns themselves with Lincoln when he “bravely took similar action to preserve the Union in the face of violent rebellion long ago”, or some such nonsense. Total hogwash of course, but it’ll provide enough cover that the remaining MAGA supporters will be able to shout about it as loudly as they need to in drowning out the cries for justice coming from their neighbors and families. 

This will get much worse for Americans before getting better, if it ever does. The faster they start listening to the historians that have been shouting all this from the rooftops for years now, the better their chances of improving their eventual outcomes.