Setting the Table for a Hot Summer
100 miles, Executive Orders, and Fighting Season
Things are lining up to be a little intense in the coming months. Some of these developments are recent, while others are older. Let’s start with 100 miles covering more territory than you might think…
The idea of a zone of “reasonable distance” for border enforcement being a distance of 100 miles started back in 1946 and expanded over the decades through various Supreme Court decisions. This means that most of New England, plus the entire states of Michigan, Florida, and Hawaii are in areas where the Fourth Amendment are open to a different set of interpretations. Customs and Border Patrol might be allowed to search vehicles and ask for paperwork based only on “probable cause,” as determined by them. The ACLU has shared some information on what your rights should be, even within the 100 mile border zone. However, given the SCOTUS track record I’m not confident that those rights would be upheld if challenged in the courts.
Next up is a recent development: Executive Orders from our illustrious POTUS. One sets out to establish a list of “sanctuary cities” for the purposes of increasing law enforcement and withholding federal tax dollars. While that’s concerning enough, another EO seeks to use “national security assets” for local law enforcement. The importance of the latter was pointed by the journalist and author Robert Evans on Bluesky:
This segues nicely into the idea of “fighting season.” Veterans of Afghanistan spoke of how combat in that country would subside in winter months and resume in the spring. This happened due economic factors and weather conditions. The same thing happens in the United States around protests. In the summer, college students — supplying a majority of protestors — are no longer in class. The weather is more conductive to spending long hours outdoors. Remember the protests around the murder of George Floyd? Summer of 2020. If there were a protest equivalent to fighting season, it’s summer.
To recap, we have a 100 mile border enforcement zone that includes most major US cities that has been upheld and strengthened through decades of legal maneuvering, executive orders to single out sanctuary cities and bolster law enforcement by military forces, and an upcoming protest season while the president enjoys record low approval ratings for the first 100 days of a presidential term. People will likely be in the streets this summer to voice their concerns over the threats to our constitutional order. And the table is being set to bring the full might of the state down upon those protestors. Given recent statements about US citizens being housed in prisons overseas, I think it’s likely we see people with unquestionable citizenship status being detained without due process and being housed in facilities in another country.
Buckle up, folks. We may be in for a rough patch. Stay safe, stay frosty.