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The 700 Marines sent to the Los Angeles area following days of protests have completed their training and will be join other troops within 48 hours of Wednesday, U.S. Northern Command said. They "have accompanied ICE on missions, but they are not a part of the operations," per NORTHCOM. "They protect; they don't participate," the statement emphasized.
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if active-duty Marines start pushing crowds around in Los Angeles without the President first invoking the Insurrection Act, they would be violating the Posse Comitatus Act and the Defense Department’s own regulations.
Title 10 U.S.C. § 275 tells the Secretary of Defense to ensure that no soldier, sailor, airman, or Marine takes part in “a search, seizure, arrest, or other similar activity” unless a law makes an exception.
DoD Instruction 3025.21 says “employment of federal military forces to control civil disturbances shall only occur … as authorized by the President” through an order such as an Insurrection Act proclamation. Crowd-control duty is explicitly treated as a civil-disturbance mission.
The Insurrection Act -- 10 U.S.C. §§ 251-255 -- lets the President use the regular armed forces to restore order when a state is unwilling or unable to enforce the law, or when rights are obstructed.
No proclamation = no authority.
So far Trump has only invoked 12406, which authorizes the federalization of the Guard in case of a rebellion, which of course, does not exist.
Trump’s Memorandum Authorizing Military Domestic Deployment
"The Memorandum ... raises many of the same concerns as an Insurrection Act invocation would, and that could end up looking quite similar in practice."
The Insurrection Act Explained
The law, which lets the president deploy the military domestically and use it for civilian law enforcement, is dangerously vague and in urgent need of reform.
Marines may stand post on a federal installation and use force in self-defense; that is force protection, not law enforcement. But the moment they push back demonstrators, form a riot line, fire tear gas, or detain people, they have crossed into law-enforcement territory:
The Posse Comitatus Act Explained
The law generally prevents the president from using the military as a domestic police force.
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We are already in unlawful territory, and we are quickly headed into dangerous territory here.
The bottom line is that Trump and his supporters are a bunch of authoritarian, anti-American thugs who hate the Constitution. These thugs will keep pushing things until the rest of us push back.