NEWS: Troops coming to a city near you?

Leaked DHS memo hints at broad plans for domestic military deployments.

Bottom Line Up Front:

A leaked internal memo reveals that the Trump administration is pressuring the Pentagon to expand military deployments domestically — not just at the border, but in more American cities.

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WHAT HAPPENED

A report over the weekend from The New Republic revealed that, at the highest levels, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is discussing more widespread troop deployments across the United States. The memo — written by Philip Hegseth, senior adviser to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and brother of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — was allegedly circulated ahead of a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials.

In it, DHS urges the Pentagon to treat immigration enforcement as a “homeland defense” mission and anticipates that “L.A.-style” deployments of military forces on U.S. city streets may be needed “for years to come,” comparing gang threats inside the country to having “Al Qaeda or ISIS cells operating freely in America.”

At the meeting, Secretary Noem reportedly sought a verbal agreement for embedding military personnel within ICE and CBP to assist with “nationwide operational planning,” in anticipation that the White House sees Los Angeles as a “model to be replicated.” Tellingly, the memo itself indicates that written policy or background materials should be kept to a minimum “due to the sensitive nature of the meeting.”

Leaked DHS memo hints at broad plans for domestic military deployments.

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WHAT IT MEANS

After Marines were deployed in Los Angeles ostensibly to quell riots, Trump allies downplayed fears that the administration was trying to militarize the President’s agenda, saying the military deployment was limited to the situation in LA.

But that’s clearly not the case. The DHS memo hints at Trump’s roadmap for turning the military inward. Not temporarily and not just in response to a single crisis. But as a routine domestic force embedded within law enforcement agencies. That would represent a very dangerous power shift in the United States.

The Founders never envisioned the military on U.S. soil, unless in the most extraordinary circumstances, such as the invasion of the country. Yet the Trump administration is now blurring the lines between civil and military authority, violating the spirit — if not the letter — of the law. The deployments in LA have already politicized the armed forces, dragging them into culture-war crackdowns and mass deportation ops.

Now as many of us have long feared, the administration is hiding grander plans. I saw the early signs during the first Trump administration. The President badly wanted to exert his influence by sending American forces into cities where his policies weren’t supported and to treat constitutionally protected dissent as a terrorist threat. His team rejected those impulses. Today, he has a team catering to them.

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WHAT’S NEXT

The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for military occupation here at home. That sounds dramatic, but DHS and the Pentagon appear to be coordinating closely to expand the armed forces’ role in homeland security in ways that would never have been acceptable when I was at DHS.

Trump has already said the quiet part out loud, making clear he wants a crackdown in places that don’t agree with him politically. He’s revealed a partial target list including places like Chicago, New York, and in his words, “other such Cities [at] the core of the Democrat Power Center.” Immigration may be the entry point. But his vision for exerting control is bigger than rounding up foreigners.

For instance, Trump could send uniformed troops to polling sites in Democratic precincts to “guard against fraud” ahead of the midterms but functionally to suppress turnout. He could invoke domestic unrest — real or imagined — to declare emergencies in liberal cities and install quasi-military control. Or he might arrest opponents and detain them indefinitely. (If that seems especially outlandish, recall that one of Trump’s top aides already floated the idea of suspending Habeas Corpus, the right to challenge your detention in court.)

If this isn’t a wake-up call, what is? Behind closed doors, Trump officials are having conversations about something that sounds like a domestic military state, and they’re insisting on secrecy because their plan isn’t to protect democracy. It’s to police it.

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