You'd think that they were American and allied troops breaking into Fallujah, the city in Iraq that was destroyed in two major assaults, but you'd be mistaken, since it was just President Trump's shock troops from the U.S. Border Patrol hunting down undocumented immigrants in cities far from the border.

He is sending heavily armed USBP personnel into cities like Chicago, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, and Boston. You could easily mistake them for military troops invading homes and villages in any number of countries where the U.S. has 800 bases around the world.

The danger of such an action by such a would-be authoritarian president is that this might be the start of Trump's general plan for his federal government to override any and all decisions made by the various states, no matter what the decision. In this case, it is the sanctuary cities that he is after, the cities that have instructed their law enforcement agencies not to cooperate with the federal agencies that are attempting to seize and deport undocumented aliens, especially if they are seeking asylum in this country. Asylum-seekers, under international law, are allowed to migrate to the country of their choice and go through the legal processes that are provided to allow them to seek to remain.

Trump doesn't like that. In fact, he would like to stop all immigration, unless they come from countries in which the inhabitants are mostly blond-haired and blue-eyed. The proponderance of those migrants seeking to enter the U.S. are from places where U.S. policy has made living unbearable or worse: they are forced to return to places where they are killed by right-wing governments and paramilitaries that are influenced by presidents like Trump. That is, if they do not outright do the bidding of the U.S. and its transnational corporations.

Sanctuary cities were established to protect those migrants who are seeking asylum and others, who are a part of the communities, working and going to school in the hope of gaining citizenship someday. The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 was passed to keep federal troops from acting as police in the South and it limits the use of federal troops on U.S. soil and forbids using them to enforce domestic law. That might be considered a part of the so-called states' rights: federal government hands-off of local rule. This was mostly used by the Dixiecrats to protect their rights to own people and the effects were felt right up into the 20th Century. Now, however, the shoe is on the other foot, and the vulnerable are being protected from the might of the federal government and the same people on the right and they don't much like the concept of states' rights at this time.

Trump, in keeping with his promise to his base that he would stop people, especially from the countries directly to the south, is finding new ways to keep people out. His execrable wall (to go with his execrable intent) is a physical manifestation of his attitude toward those who he considers lesser beings, and his intent is to keep them out. He regularly inflames his base with such tactics, even if they don't work and are purely figments of his warped imagination. So it is with sending Border Patrol swat teams to sanctuary cities. He may think that he can avoid the law against the use of federal troops in local law enforcement. The Border Patrol is a law enforcement agency, rather than a military one.

This is but one more example of Trump's skirting the law and precedent and plain common sense. He will find a way to avoid the messy rule of law to gain what he believes is good for him. Already, the U.S. military has rid themselves of billions of dollars of military equipment and hardware by foisting them off on local police agencies. For example, what city of 25,000 people has need of an armored personnel carrier? But these are the kinds of things that the Pentagon has delivered to local police.

All of this predated Trump, but he has capitalized on the policy and we now have Border Patrol swat personnel invading neighborhoods in sanctuary cities. The difference between Border Patrol officers and local police officers might be the color of their battle gear, the police in a solid blue or black uniform, while the Border Patrol might be in camouflage. Militarization of local police departments has been an area of concern for human rights advocates and legal experts for years, but the Pentagon apparently has found a way to rid itself of unwanted materiel and equipment and to continue to order billions of dollars of new gadgets for their vaunted “asymmetric wars,” which are fought between adversaries of greatly disparate strength, such as the unending wars in the Middle East.

Since World War II, there have been asymmetric wars fought by the U.S. and its allies and, in all of them, more civilians have been killed than combatants. This is an atrocity that seems never-ending, just like the lust for more wars, for natural resources or for the defeat of political and economic systems that the U.S. oligarchs and their minions in Congress don't like. In future invasions of sanctuary cities at the command of Trump by his Border Patrols is sure to result in civilian casualties, especially since most of those whose homes are violated and entered are not combatants in any way, but the BP troops will enter in such a way that ensuress that harm will come to innocent people.

The U.S. Border Patrol is the law enforcement arm of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection inside the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. It's not the military, so apparently Trump thinks that he can deploy them as he wishes, including local law enforcement. Border Patrol agents number 21,370 now, but in the future, watchdogs would be wise to keep track of sharp increases in the number of agents under Trump's watch, since he might be planning to use them as his own police force, to be sent out across the nation at his whim. This is a dangerous moment, especially since Trump is authoritarian in his bent and any additional power to rule over every affair of every jurisdiction sets a dangerous precedent. He has ignored the laws of the nation and international agreements in seeking more power and more wealth for himself and his brethern among the very rich. He'll continue to do that.

Omar Jadwat, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, had this reaction to Trump’s restrictive sanctuary cities order: “President Trump is threatening to punish localities for establishing constitutional safeguards and for protecting the public safety of their entire community. He may hope that local officials will buckle under his threats, but they have been preparing to defend their policies and we will stand with them in court.”

Most of Trump's most egregious acts have been the result of his racial and ethnic bias, despite what he continually claims, that he is the least racist person in the world. His acts and words have proven the opposite. His deportation force and executive orders have shown that the Border Patrol raids on homes in sanctuary cities is just the beginning. Citizens everywhere should be aware of his growing sense of entitlement, akin to that of a king. He has been emboldened by the fraudulent acquittal of his impeachment charges by the cowardly Republican Senate. All Americans will pay the price.