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"Over the past few months, Erik Prince, former head of the private military company Blackwater (now known by the name Constellis), has pitched multiple proposals to the White House to help with mass deportations. Prince has argued that achieving President Trump’s aggressive deportation goals will require the government to “supplement” ICE’s capabilities. According to one of his proposals, a new Prince company, 2USV, would train and deploy an army of as many as 100,000 armed and deputized citizens. The administration has not yet decided to implement the plan, though Trump said he “wouldn’t be opposed to it, necessarily.” ...Prince’s proposed “army” would be a “pro-government militia,” which the academic literature defines as an organized, armed group that is government-sponsored and not part of regular security forces. Because these groups can be kept at arms’ length from political elites, research shows that many governments around the world use these militias to “evade accountability for strategically useful violence.” Governments shift blame to such militias to retain deniability in the face of domestic pressures or international condemnation. For this reason, they are associated with significant reductions in a country’s respect for human rights, as seen in other countries throughout history, including Serbia, Argentina and Chile.
Paramilitaries are often thought of as characteristic of dictatorships, but research shows that informal pro-government militias tend to emerge in “weak” democracies where leaders are navigating fragile institutions of accountability. “Strong” democracies usually prevent these groups from emerging because they have more robust constraints on the executive branch and corruption is harder to hide from the public. The troubling fact is that Trump’s attacks on American political institutions and independent media integrity have eroded U.S. democracy.
Expanded efforts through shady paramilitary groups is becoming surprisingly possible in the U.S., and the conditions are ripe for this proposed army to commit human rights abuses. It’s worth remembering that Prince’s former company Blackwater was involved in human rights abuses in the past, including a massacre of at least 14 Iraqi civilians, whose perpetrators were pardoned by Trump in 2020. ......the political incentives exist for the unprecedented use of pro-government militias on American soil. Immigrants may be the current target of increasingly reckless enforcement efforts, but repressive action by domestic paramilitaries may not stop there."
Link
I wonder how the citizens on the streets would respond.
Paramilitaries are often thought of as characteristic of dictatorships, but research shows that informal pro-government militias tend to emerge in “weak” democracies where leaders are navigating fragile institutions of accountability. “Strong” democracies usually prevent these groups from emerging because they have more robust constraints on the executive branch and corruption is harder to hide from the public. The troubling fact is that Trump’s attacks on American political institutions and independent media integrity have eroded U.S. democracy.
Expanded efforts through shady paramilitary groups is becoming surprisingly possible in the U.S., and the conditions are ripe for this proposed army to commit human rights abuses. It’s worth remembering that Prince’s former company Blackwater was involved in human rights abuses in the past, including a massacre of at least 14 Iraqi civilians, whose perpetrators were pardoned by Trump in 2020. ......the political incentives exist for the unprecedented use of pro-government militias on American soil. Immigrants may be the current target of increasingly reckless enforcement efforts, but repressive action by domestic paramilitaries may not stop there."
Link
I wonder how the citizens on the streets would respond.
