John Kelly and James Mattis Prevented Trump from Using Troops to Defend the Border from Illegal Invasion
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James Fulford of VDare revealed that retired generals John Kelly and James Mattis played an instrumental role in preventing President Donald Trump from using U.S. troops on the southern border.
Kelly was the Chief of Staff and Mattis was the United States Secretary of Defense under the Trump administration.
According to Fulford, the two former Trump administration officials believed that the Posse Comitatus Act prevents American Armed Forces from defending the country from invasion.
Fulford noted the following:
In sum, the Posse Comitatus Act prevents the U.S. army from being deployed against Americans, but it says nothing about protecting the border, which deals with keeping foreigners out — a whole separate matter.
He cited excerpts from the book Border Wars: Inside Trump’s Assault on Immigration, authored by Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Michael D. Shear:
- Mattis was taken aback, although his dour expression betrayed no emotion. Under a late-nineteenth-century law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, much of the military was barred from performing domestic law enforcement duties, such as policing a border, and the principle had long been seen as sacrosanct.
- …Kelly tried to explain the limits of what the troops were allowed to do at the border. They could help fortify it with barbed wire and build tent cities to help ease the crunch on ICE and CBP, which were rapidly running out of space to hold migrants. But military personnel couldn’t actually touch a migrant, either to detain one or to provide any kind of care or service. And they certainly could not use force to push them back, Kelly explained. Trump was not hearing him.
- [Trump] talked extensively about the role of the military, and, under questioning by reporters covering his comments, suggested that the troops might use lethal force to confront immigrants at the border. Asked what the American forces would do if migrants threw rocks, Trump answered: “If they want to throw rocks at our military, our military fights back,” the president said. “I told them, ‘Consider it a rifle.’?”