The Air Force is the only one of the military branches involved in President Donald Trump's mandated border mission to not disclose publicly the number of service members or what units they're coming from.
The Air Force is not enforcing domestic policy here. If you see Airman out on the streets arresting people then you’d have a point.
I don’t think you have any kind of authority to really substantiate that particular semantic dispute.
I’m sure we’ll probably see it brought before a court at some point, but I would argue that if the policy isn’t possible to execute without the logistical support of the military then the military is crucial to the enforcement of the policy.
The armed forces can’t execute law domestically. The question driving the discussion here is what exactly constitutes “executing law.” According to DoD policy, the armed forces are prohibited from performing the following law enforcement activities:
interdiction of a vehicle, vessel, aircraft, or other similar activity
a search or seizure;
an arrest; apprehension; stop and frisk; engaging in interviews, interrogations, canvassing, or questioning of potential witnesses or suspects; or similar activity;
using force or physical violence, brandishing a weapon, discharging or using a weapon, or threatening to discharge or use a weapon except in self-defense, in defense of other DoD persons in the vicinity, or in defense of non-DoD persons, including civilian law enforcement personnel, in the vicinity when directly related to an assigned activity or mission;
evidence collection; security functions; crowd and traffic control; and operating, manning, or staffing checkpoints;
surveillance or pursuit of individuals, vehicles, items, transactions, or physical locations, or acting as undercover agents, informants, investigators, or interrogators; and
forensic investigations or other testing of evidence obtained from a suspect for use in a civilian law enforcement investigation
According to DoD policy, the armed forces are prohibited from performing the following law enforcement activities:
This article is limited to national guard personnel, active duty troops have even more limitations to domestic operations. Which is why national guard units were utilized to “secure the border”, and not actual active duty service members.
Applies to National Guard (NG) personnel in Reference (d) status only.
e. Applies to civilian employees of the DoD Components and the activities of DoD
contractors performed in support of the DoD Components.
I don’t think you have any kind of authority to really substantiate that particular semantic dispute.
I’m sure we’ll probably see it brought before a court at some point, but I would argue that if the policy isn’t possible to execute without the logistical support of the military then the military is crucial to the enforcement of the policy.
Source
This article is limited to national guard personnel, active duty troops have even more limitations to domestic operations. Which is why national guard units were utilized to “secure the border”, and not actual active duty service members.