A DePaul University professor is asking President Donald Trump to suspend the Posse Comitatus Act, which he calls an outdated law that unfairly limits the president’s ability to use domestic militarization to respond to crises across the nation.
Jason D. Hill authored an opinion that was published in The Hill under the headline, “Mr. President, please send the troops to Chicago,” in which he wrote that Trump had promised during his campaign to send troops to fix the problems with the city.
Chicago is a great city but has a crime rate that is 35 percent higher than the national average, Hill wrote. He called the homicide statistics for Chicago horrific.
Hill wrote that gang members terrorize neighborhoods and challenge local authorities. He said Trump’s own presidency is ridiculed when these criminals establish their own lawless personal territories wherein they take away power from local law enforcement and kill innocent people. He claimed these gangs put themselves above the law, which isn’t right.
Hill wrote he wants Trump to suspend the act to fix this issue. He noted he believes if Trump could send troops to Chicago, it would the lives of many who live there. He wrote that “all lives matter” and that Trump is in the position to save them.
“Unleash those troops not to instill fear, but as the insignia of urban civility and order,” Hill wrote. “Do it not just to save black and Hispanic lives. Do it because it is the moral thing to do.”
Hill gave an example of a student who said he had to drop out of college and join a gang to be safe and an example of a girl whose babysitting job wages would be partially taken by gang members so she could be protected from those same gang members.
“Our city is under siege,” Hill wrote. “It is bleeding to death by thousands of tiny scratches.”
Hill said Trump could suspend the law and send in the forces necessary to quiet Chicago’s streets and restore safety to at-risk neighborhoods.
Hill wrote that he came to the United States more than 30 years ago from Jamaica and worked for one year just to save up enough money for one semester of college. He then continued to work full time while going to school full time. He eventually graduated from college and pursued a doctorate in philosophy.
He specializes in ethics, social and political philosophy, cosmopolitanism, philosophical psychology, philosophy of education and race theory. He has also authored two books.
