(Washington) President Donald Trump reiterated Tuesday his threat to use a state of emergency to deploy the National Guard in cities run by Democrats, ruling that he had the legal possibility to do so.
“I have the right to use theInsurrection Act », assured the head of state on the plane taking him back to Washington, after the summit on Gaza in Egypt.
“I could use it if I wanted,” he insisted, stressing that this presidential prerogative could “not be contested.”
Justice has temporarily blocked the deployment of 500 National Guard troops to Chicago, a city run by Democrats, to support immigration police.
But Donald Trump said that nothing stopped him from resorting toInsurrection Acta compilation of laws from the 18the and XIXe centuries, to override court decisions. The text makes it possible to proclaim a state of emergency, authorizing the use of armed forces against American citizens, prohibited in normal times.
For weeks, the Republican president has been targeting Chicago, which he describes as a “rat hole” or even the “murder capital of the world” and has announced his intention to deploy soldiers there as he did in Los Angeles, Washington, and Memphis (South), each time against the advice of local authorities.
Donald Trump has made the fight against illegal immigration a top priority, speaking of an “invasion” of the United States by “criminals from abroad” and communicating extensively on expulsions of immigrants.
National Guardsmen, Army reservists, are trained to respond to natural disaster situations, but they can also fight overseas.
Democrats accuse the president of exaggerating the security situation to try to justify sending the army.
The aim is to “create a pretext to invoke theInsurrection Act so that we can send the army into our city,” Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker recently declared, judging that there was “no insurrection” in Chicago.
