Brian Err on WNYC and with what's going on in L.A. right now, let's go all the way there

with the ultimate authoritarian nightmare scenario that many Democrats and some other people are

articulating. It's that the mass deportation, workplace, raid, and then deployment by President

Trump of the National Guard is really about this, as articulated on NPR yesterday by California

Congresswoman Maxine Waters.

Trump hates us. He hates sanctuary city. He's going to try and make an example out of us.

And this is how he's going to get to have martial law because he wants to go to us into a fight.

Marshall law. So is the Trump administration acting consistent with the Constitution, at least so far,

and would anything allow him to declare martial law in a constitutional sense? Joining us now

is Leah Littman, Professor of Law at the University of Michigan and a former Supreme Court Clerk,

co-host of the podcast, Strict Scrutiny, and author of the new book Lawless, How the Supreme Court

runs on conservative grievance, fringe theories, and bad vibes. Professor Littman,

thanks for coming on for this on short notice with the breaking news. Welcome back to WNYC.

Thanks for having me. So let me start here. They had warrants for the raids on workplaces on Friday, from what I read. The workplace raids that triggered the protests. They arrested more than 100 people. Did the warrants at least make it legal to just burst into workplaces where there was no disturbance or to pull out workers who were not suspected of anything other than their immigration status?

So without having seen the warrants, it's a little bit difficult to know.

Sometimes warrants might authorize immigration officers or federal officers to detain or arrest other people on the premises, or they might be defined in

such a way as to allow them to detain only a certain number of people. I have some skepticism about

whether the way in which they conducted the arrest was lawful, in particular, the mass roundup of

individuals at Home Depot, you know, trying to seemingly wrangle as many people up

as they could while individuals are fleeing does not strike me as the kind of thing that was

likely authorized by the warrant or by probable cause, but not having seen the warrant, it's a little

bit difficult to say. And the L.A. raid is obviously making news. There are some others that have been reported.

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