The Department of Homeland Security is looking to boost its deployment of the military on the streets of the U.S. in order to help carry out Donald Trump’s immigration policies, according to a leaked memo written by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s brother.
The document, obtained by The New Republic, details plans for how the Trump administration could use the military to assist with domestic law enforcement as part of its mass deportation agenda for “years” to come.
The letter from Phil Hegseth, the younger brother of the defense secretary, pushed for the move despite admitting the deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and U.S. Marines to Los Angeles amid the anti-ICE protests was not “perfect.”
Carrie Lee, senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund, told The New Republic the contents of the memo are “disturbing” and outline intent to use the “military within the United States at a level not seen since Japanese internment.”
“The military is the most powerful, coercive tool our country has. We don’t want the military doing law enforcement,” Lee said. “It absolutely undermines the rule of law.”
Phil Hegseth, who works inside the Pentagon as a liaison to the Department of Homeland Security and as a senior adviser to the defense secretary, previously made headline news after it was alleged his brother discussed the Trump administration’s plans to attack Yemen with him on a messaging app during the Signalgate controversy.
He is now alleged to have written a memo that outlines a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials discussing how the departments could coordinate “in defense of the homeland.”
That includes convincing leading military officials, such as Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, of the “urgency” of the so-called “homeland defense mission.”
The memo also suggests this ramping up of military deployment is needed as foreign gangs and drug cartels that Trump has listed as terrorist organizations pose a similar threat to “Al Qaeda or ISIS cells and fighters operating freely inside America.”
Elsewhere, the memo suggests that the deployment of troops to L.A.—which allegedly saw them sleeping on floors, not being provided food or water, and complaining of having nothing to do once the protest calmed down—did not go as planned.
“Everyone here is also aware of our joint work in L.A. It hasn’t been perfect, and we’re still working through best practices together, but I think it’s a good indicator of the type of operations (and resistance) we’re going to be working through for years to come,” the memo said.
Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center, told The New Republic that the memo suggests “military involvement in domestic civilian law enforcement” on the streets of the U.S. is about to become “more common.”
The White House, DHS, and the DoD did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
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