![]() ![]() Joseph Lengyel, chief of the National Guard Bureau, in a press release March 16. “I trust the will continue to make decisions at their level to ensure our force of 450,000 people will be ready when their governors call,” said Gen. Neither statute grants any power to the president. ![]() Virgin Islands to declare martial law under certain circumstances. 1422, 1591) authorize the territorial governors of Guam and the U.S. footnote12z2ymr2 1 Two federal statutes (48 U.S.C. While much of the coronavirus response falls under the purview of federal government, “ laws relating to public health and safety falls squarely within the powers of the states under the Tenth Amendment,” The Atlantic reported.Īs such, states would most likely need to put in requests for Stafford Act declarations for COVID-19 relief.įor now, no major mobilizations have occurred, and the power to call up the National Guard remains with the states, including for drill weekends and other duties. No existing federal statute explicitly authorizes the president to declare martial law. The president has named the coronavirus a “major disaster” under the Stafford Act, which enumerates how the federal government can handle emergency responses, which no president has ever done before in response to a health epidemic. “Then we can designate existing hospital beds for the acutely ill.” “At this point, our best hope is to utilize the Army Corps of Engineers to leverage its expertise, equipment and people power to retrofit and equip existing facilities - like military bases or college dormitories - to serve as temporary medical centers,” he wrote. Andrew Cuomo wrote an op-ed in the New York Times pleading with Trump to increase testing and mobilize the military to help open more hospital beds before the situation spirals out of control. National Guard units, however, as they operate under state-rule, are exempt from the Posse Comitatus Act. That act essentially prohibits troops from carrying out domestic law enforcement actions such as searching and seizing property and dispersing crowds. It originally applied only to the Army, but has since been amended to include the Defense Department and the other service branches. The Posse Comitatus Act, passed on June 18, 1878, stopped federal troops from supervising Confederate state elections during Reconstruction. “Abraham Lincoln conceded that his unilateral suspension of habeas corpus during the Civil War was constitutionally questionable, but defended it as necessary to preserve the Union.”īut martial law is not without limits. Bush’s programs of warrantless wiretapping and torture after the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the Atlantic reported. citizens and residents of Japanese descent during World War II and George W. ![]()
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