Why Trump’s move toward using the military on US soil is so fraught

Analysis by Aaron Blake, CNN

The country hangs on a hugely significant precipice, as President Donald Trump moves toward making good on his long-running suggestions of an extraordinary step: deploying the military on US soil.

About 700 Marines have now been mobilized to join the National Guard in Los Angeles to deal with demonstrations over federal immigration raids, CNN reports. The Marines were previously on "ready to deploy" status. (It is still unclear what their specific task will be once in Los Angeles, sources told CNN. And like the National Guard troops, they are prohibited from conducting law enforcement activity such as making arrests unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act.)

But to hear the White House tell it, this show of force is not just the right thing to do but also a political winner.

Responding to a poll showing 54% of Americans approved of Trump's deportation program, White House spokesman Steven Cheung wrote on X Sunday, "And the approval number will be even higher after the national guard was sent to LA to beat back the violence this weekend."

But whether the American people actually want this military activation isn't nearly so clear.

In fact, they've rejected such things in the past. The administration may be making a huge gamble on the American people's tolerance for a heavy-handed federal response.

And while Americans might not have much sympathy for the demonstrators in Los Angeles who engage in violence or for undocumented immigrants, recent surveys have shown they often say Trump goes too far in his attempts to address such problems.

There is something of an analog for the current situation.

• Trump's controversial immigration crackdown explained

It came in 2020 when federal law enforcement suddenly moved to clear Lafayette Square, near the White House, of racial justice demonstrators, resulting in violent scenes. This wasn't the military, but it was controversial - in part because Trump then walked across the square with military leaders for a photo-op. (Then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper also resisted Trump's suggestions of using active-duty military at the time.)

The American people did not like what they saw.

A USA Today/Ipsos poll conducted a week later showed 63% of Americans opposed the use of rubber bullets and tear gas that day. It also showed Americans opposed deploying military forces in other states by 10 points, 51-41%.

Similarly a CNN poll conducted by SSRS at the time asked a broader question - whether it would be appropriate for a president to "deploy the U.S. military in response to protests in the United States."

Americans said this would be "inappropriate" by a wide margin, 60-36%.

All of which suggest Americans are predisposed to viewing such actions skeptically.

These numbers come with caveats, though. The CNN poll question is a great window into how this could be received. But it's possible people's views have shifted or could shift with circumstances, including the role the Marines end up playing in Los Angeles.

Back in 2020, the racial justice protests were relatively popular, and people didn't view them as particularly violent. Americans sympathized with the cause, believing George Floyd had been murdered by police.

It's too early to tell how people view the demonstrators in Los Angeles. And the plight of the undocumented immigrants whom the administration is trying to deport is probably less sympathetic than the racial justice protesters' cause. (Clear majorities generally support deporting undocumented immigrants, who are in this country without authorization.)

But when it comes to the administration's immigration crackdown, Americans have also expressed nuanced feelings. And the poll the White House cited this weekend is a case in point.

In the CBS News/YouGov survey, which was conducted before Saturday's protests broke out in Los Angeles, Americans said they approved of Trump's deportation program, 54-46%. They also liked its "goals," 55-45%.

But that's not quite the same as saying they approved of the administration's actions, full stop. The same poll asked whether people liked "the way you think [Trump] is going about" the deportations. And there, Americans actually disliked his approach by double-digits, 56-44%.

While independents were about evenly split on Trump's deportation program, they disliked how he's gone about it by 30 points, 65-35%.

This is a dichotomy we see in lots of polling of Trump's deportation actions. Americans like the idea of mass deportation, but not so much the implementation. They like the president a lot on securing the border. But they like him significantly less on "immigration," and they like him even less when "deportation," specifically, is invoked in the question.

One possible reason: Americans see the administration moving haphazardly. That could most notably be the case with things like deporting the wrong people and actions that have been halted by the courts, including ones in which judges have said people haven't been given enough due process.

It's possible that people could come to sympathize with the cause of the Los Angeles protesters - if not the violent ones - at least to some degree. While Americans generally favor mass deportation, those numbers decline significantly when you mention the prospect of deporting otherwise-law-abiding people with jobs and those who have been in this country for a long time.

(For example, a recent Pew Research Center poll showed Americans opposed deporting undocumented immigrants who have jobs, 56-41%, and they opposed deporting the parents of US citizen children 60-37%.)

But the raids that set off the protests have been directed at workplaces generally - not necessarily at criminals or gang members. The Department of Homeland Security has claimed at least five of the people arrested during Sunday immigration sweeps in Los Angeles had criminal convictions or were accused of crimes.

Through it all, the administration has made a rather Machiavellian political calculation: that however much people dislike the means, their support for the ends will carry the day. Maybe people say they don't like the lack of due process the administration has provided - or the wrong people getting sent to a brutal Salvadoran prison - but how much do they really care if the end result is lots of deportations?

Similarly, the administration could be making the calculation that scenes of violence in Los Angeles could marshal support for a previously unthinkable step of deploying the military domestically against protesters - something Americans opposed by 24 points just five years ago.

So much depends on what the Marines end up doing in Los Angeles and whether Trump invokes the Insurrection Act to allow them to engage in policing activities.

But the Trump administration has clearly gone too far for people before as part of their deportation efforts. And the one big crackdown on protesters we have seen in the Trump era didn't go well.

- CNN