Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tried to get a jump start on using the military to arrest protesters in Los Angeles, according to a newly unearthed letter.
The letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle — got out in front of the White House in seeking to have the Pentagon order the U.S. Marines deployed in the city to arrest protesters who are opposed to the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant raids. (CBS News has also confirmed the contents of the letter.)
A letter sent Sunday from Noem to Hegseth, obtained by the Chronicle, requested that the Pentagon give ‘Direction to DoD forces to either detain, just as they would at any federal facility guarded by military, lawbreakers under Title 18 until they can be arrested and processed by federal law enforcement, or arrest them.’
Even the Los Angeles Police Department, echoing statements by California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, has expressed its view that the military isn’t necessary to handle the demonstrations. LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell said he was confident the LAPD could handle the protests on its own, and that any failure to notify the department of the troop deployment would cause issues.
“The possible arrival of federal military forces in Los Angeles absent clear coordination presents a significant logistical and operational challenge for those of us charged with safeguarding this city,” he said, adding: “The Los Angeles Police Department, alongside our mutual aid partners, have decades of experience managing large-scale public demonstrations, and we remain confident in our ability to do so professionally and effectively.”
The Chronicle reported that the administration provided two separate responses to news of the leaked letter: The first defended Noem’s attempt to sic the military on civilians, and then the administration sent a second it said should replace the first. The second statement said, “This letter was sent days ago, prior to the Secretary of Homeland Security and Secretary of Defense meeting with the President. The posture of our brave troops has not changed. This is a whole-of-government approach to restore law and order. We are grateful to our military members and law enforcement who have acted with patriotism in the face of assault, taunts, and violence.”
For the record, although the Trump administration has sought to portray violence and destruction at the protests as widespread, these demonstrations — like many others — appear largely peaceful, with only isolated incidents of destroyed property. But Noem’s letter speaks to a growing thirst within the Trump administration to blur the line between the U.S. military and local law enforcement in ways that are alarming and potentially threaten civil liberties.
Even now, the question of the military’s rules of engagement for encounters with civilians seems hazy. The major general leading Trump’s deployment of more than 2,000 National Guard troops and several hundred Marines told Reuters that service members are not authorized to conduct arrests, but he did suggest troops will be able to “detain” people “temporarily” — just as Noem requested. A layman might struggle to see the difference between the two.
Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, offered up the most succinct response in a social media thread that lays out the threat posed by an administration that’s deploying the military against its own citizens.
“The line between military and civilian government is one of the most critical protections for democracy,” she wrote. “An army turned inward can quickly become an instrument of tyranny. That’s why domestic deployment should be an absolute last resort.”