Trump Administration Sends In The Marines… To Do Paperwork?

Martial law still appears to be the plan. The rollout has been limited, but the wholly unnecessary deployment of military troops to California sent a message our performative president wanted to get across.

Trump sent an even more explicit one days later, following up on DHS boss Kristi Noem’s quasi-declaration of war on this “democrat” state — one that is host to vehement protests against ICE, with any violence not directly attributed to law enforcement escalation relegated to a few blocks in downtown Los Angeles.

Several thousand National Guard troops are now engaging in law enforcement activity in the Los Angeles area, as well as in areas far removed from the city they were sent to. Marines, sent to Los Angeles by the order of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, have already been spotted detaining people until law enforcement officers can take over.

Florida isn’t a “democrat” state. But it is wholly receptive to the administration’s racist actions. The state has already passed an unconstitutional law that allows local law enforcement to engage in anti-immigrant actions. Now, because it’s so receptive to Trump’s push to eject non-whites from the country, it’s host to a couple of hundred Marines… for no apparent reason. Here’s the latest symptom of Trump’s martial law aspirations, as reported by Reuters.

The U.S. military said on Thursday it will send 200 Marines to Florida to provide administrative and logistical support to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Marines are the first wave of U.S. Northern Command’s support to the immigration enforcement agency’s mission, it said.

Let’s deal with the second sentence first. Apparently, this is just the beginning. While Florida hasn’t really seen nearly as much opposition to ICE as in other areas of the country, it’s nonetheless being given a few hundred Marines just because. If this is just the “first wave,” the administration obviously wants to keep sending military troops to any place that won’t challenge the deployment in court and/or any place Trump feels is filled with political enemies. Neither of these things are good — much less legal — reasons to deploy Marines.

Back to the first paragraph: when most people think about sending in the Marines, they think of a first wave of well-trained killers capable of clearing a path for their military inferiors. But that’s not what’s happening here, according to military officials, who claim the Marines will not be engaging in law enforcement duties. If they did, that would be illegal.

Instead, they’ll be doing the things no one considers Marines to be exceptional at doing: paperwork, filling vehicles with gas, looking at stuff posted on white boards, and sitting behind desks. In other words, they’ll be immediately redundant. “Administrative and logistical” support can be performed by anyone capable of hosting a Teams meeting. This is just some stupid muscle-flexing — a show of force that serves as a latent threat, rather than performing any useful or necessary task.

USNORTHCOM says Marines are forbidden from being in “direct contact” with anyone in ICE custody, as well as being involved in any part of the “custody chain.” So, Marines can’t arrest or detain anyone, but the military’s order don’t specifically preclude them from joining ICE in raids to provide an additional level of intimidation, much in the way the Marines and National Guard have in Los Angeles.

The water continues to be tested by this administration. And, so far, it seems to feel just fine. Once troops are everywhere Trump wants them (and that now includes Texas and Louisiana), it’s only a matter of time before they’re asked to go beyond the legal limitations of domestic deployment.