The US has seen a wave of violent protests against raids by immigration authorities. President Trump first mobilized the National Guard against the wishes of California Governor Gavin Newsom and has now deployed 700 Marines to Los Angeles in a move Newsom has labelled “unjustified” and “unprecedented.”
A constitutional crisis in the offing?
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Germany’s Handelsblatt comments:
We’re talking about the last bastion of American democracy that the president is now targeting federalism. ... Trump is testing the limits of his political power here. And there are good reasons to believe that the West’s leading power could be facing a veritable constitutional crisis. ... All of this adds up to an anti-democratic picture that could hardly be more alarming. He would be a ‘dictator’ for one day, Trump said half-jokingly during the election campaign. Well, it took a little longer than that to organize the political system around the president, he is probably thinking to himself today.”
Ultimate test
The protests pose a serious challenge for the US president, the Irish Independent stresses:
The Women’s Marches and BLM protests of his first administration may have, at times, turned rowdy and chaotic / but their violence was never directed at the White House like it is right now. This moment is different. Very different. ... The California protesters could prove the ultimate – and most unanticipated – foils to a Trump White House whose run of nearly unchallenged luck looks like it is coming to an end. For many illegal migrants facing deportation, the specter of arrest or even death rivals the potential violence awaiting in their home nations. These are people with literally nothing to lose.
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Playing games with purported crises
Austria’s Kurier sees a calculated move behind the violent crackdown on protesters in California:
When you get right down to it, the script is always the same: whether it’s about tariffs, the crusade against elite Harvard University or the fight against illegal immigration - the Trump administration always sees emergencies and threats to national security that the president uses to justify measures that exceed the limits of his presidential powers.
Threat of spiral of violence
Sweden’s Göteborgs-Posten fears that such actions could lead to an escalation in migration-related problems:
The US finds itself in a dilemma. Mass illegal immigration from the south has led to social problems, including crime, and is keeping wages low in certain sectors of the economy. English is being replaced by Spanish in some areas. Integration is made difficult by the sheer numbers of people, and the rifts in the country are growing. Most Americans are against this trend. ... Doing nothing is unlikely to be accepted by the American people. But Trump’s methods could well lead to a spiral of violence that neither he nor anyone else can fully control.
Heading towards autocracy
Trump is blatantly overstepping his authority, Slovenia’s Dnevnik rails:
The resistance both to his tariffs and to his immigration policy has cast doubt on the core of his Maga policy. To protect it he is prepared to act beyond the powers enshrined in the constitution, thereby relativizing the existing American legal order, personalizing power in a dangerous way and pushing American democracy further and further into autocratic waters. When, power-crazed, he cites his own opinion as the basis for sending Marines to California, it’s high time for a constitutional complaint. The Republicans should also acknowledge this.
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