Yes, Trump Can Invoke the Insurrection Act to Deport Immigrants

One of the most interesting legal phenomena of the Trump administration has been the increased use of—and public focus on—previously obscure federal statutes that delegate surprisingly broad power to the president. From using the National Emergencies Act to build his border wall and the Federal Vacancies Reform Act to control the upper echelons of the executive branch, to using the Trade Expansion Act to raise tariffs against Canada in the dubious name of “national security,” President Donald Trump has pursued an array of actions that at once seem to be both within the letter of these laws and an indictment of the open-endedness of their statutory delegations. If The Daily Caller is correct, the latest addition to this list may soon be the Insurrection Act—which the president plans to use “to remove illegal immigrants from the United States,” the outlet reported yesterday.