Hopefully, when the cops come to Boston, Mayor Michelle Wu will put up a greater combat than that Rhode Island assistant legal professional basic did.
Not that Wu will use the “Don’t you already know who I’m?” protection to ICE brokers that Rhode Island Assistant Legal professional Normal Devon Flanagan Hogan used when the Newport cops put her within the again seat of a patrol automotive the opposite day.
“Buddy, you’re going to remorse this. I’m an AG,” Hogan instructed the cops. Yeah, proper, the cops replied. Hogan has been suspended from her job.
That won’t occur to Wu as a result of, in contrast to the girl prosecutor with three names, everybody is aware of who Wu is. And, in contrast to Hogan, she has her personal police power.
And everybody is aware of that she is the mayor of Boston who’s standing as much as President Donald Trump and his “tyrannical” plan to ship Nationwide Guard troops and ICE brokers into cities like Boston to fight rising crime and to arrest prison unlawful immigrants.
Over my useless physique, Wu, in impact, stated to Trump and to U.S. Legal professional Normal Pam Bondi. Revolutionary Boston stood as much as the British and Boston will stand as much as you, Wu, in so many phrases, stated.
To cheering Boston patriots (metropolis staff and marketing campaign supporters) Wu in a letter to Bondi and a Metropolis Corridor Plaza rally, put it this manner: “On behalf of the individuals of Boston, and in solidarity with the cities and communities focused by this federal administration for our refusal to bow right down to unconstitutional threats and illegal coercion, we affirm our help for one another and our democracy.
“Boston won’t ever again down from being a beacon of freedom and a house for everybody.”
“Boston,” she stated, “won’t ever again down from who we’re and what we stand for.”
In Boston’s case, it’s Wu’s insistence that Boston is so freed from crime that it doesn’t need assistance from the Nationwide Guard. Additionally, it has the Boston Belief Act that prohibits Boston police from serving to ICE within the arrest of unlawful immigrants with no prison warrant.
Whereas all of it sounds daring and courageous, Wu’s remarks are usually not authentic. Governors, not to mention mayors, have been “standing up” to the federal authorities and the deployment of the Nationwide Guard for years. And shedding,
Whereas the federal Posse Comitatus Act restricts the usage of the Nationwide Guard for home enforcement functions, there are exceptions. They embody rebel, revolt, a breakdown in legislation and order and “illegal obstruction” of federal actions.
It has been used to keep up legislation and order greater than thirty instances within the final 50 years or so, whether or not invited by a governor or not. Trump wanted no invitation in Washington, D.C., a federal metropolis, or earlier in Los Angeles.
Whereas Democrats and progressives vehemently oppose Trump sending the Nationwide Guard into states and cities to assist deter crime and implement the legislation, it was not all the time the case.
Liberals cheered Democrat President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 when, over the objections of segregationist Democrat Alabama Gov. George Wallace, he federalized the Alabama Nationwide Guard to guard civil rights protestors on the Selma march to the capital.
Johnson adopted within the footsteps to President John F. Kennedy, who, in 1963, 5 months earlier than he was assassinated, federalized the Alabama Nationwide Guard to take away Wallace from blocking two black college students from attending the beforehand all white College of Alabama.
Whereas it was the correct factor to do underneath the civil rights motion, Wallace, in his last-ditch “Stand within the Schoolhouse Door” speech, vilified the federal authorities.
Sounding loads like Michelle Wu at the moment, Wallace stated, “I stand right here at the moment, as governor of this sovereign state, and refuse to willingly to undergo unlawful usurpation of energy by the central authorities.”
The federal government’s takeover and use of the Nationwide Guard was an “unwelcomed, undesirable and unwarranted intrusion” upon the state.
Which it in all probability was. However it was authorized and the appropriate factor to do.
So is sending within the Guard to do the job that Democrat mayors won’t do.
Veteran political reporter Peter Lucas might be reached at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com
Workers Picture By Matt Stone/Boston Herald
ICE is aiming for Boston subsequent. (Herald file photograph)
