\n\u201cEnding Crime And Disorder On America\u2019s Streets\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
What\u2019s the crime and disorder so troubling it needs yet another executive order that further expands the power of US law enforcement past the troubling amount it already possesses? Tough to say, since it\u2019s the president saying it, and he\u2019s never been great with words. Even with ghostwriters, this is barely coherent:<\/p>\n
\nEndemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.\u00a0 The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration \u2014 274,224 \u2014 was the highest ever recorded.\u00a0 The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.\u00a0 Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes.\u00a0 An equally large share of homeless individuals reported suffering from mental health conditions. \u00a0The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Yep. Drink that all in. DID YOU VOTE FOR THIS, REGRETFUL TRUMP VOTERS?<\/p>\n
The first sentence does a lot of conflation in service of the ultimate goal. It also does the usual bloodlust thing where it pretends US crime rates are the worst they\u2019ve ever been while not-so-slyly insinuating the (made-up) crime problem is the result of too\u00a0much<\/em>\u00a0compassion towards the less-fortunate.<\/p>\n
The conflation is followed by stats that aren\u2019t supported by any citations. And that\u2019s followed by two compounded assertions (again, without citations to supporting facts) that most homeless people are both (1) addicted to hard drugs, and (2) suffering from mental health conditions.<\/p>\n
The final claim is the lousiest, at least in this context. Trump claims the government has wasted billions of dollars trying to \u201caddress\u201d homelessness while never bothering to examine the root causes. Trump expects you to just sort of ride that wave of bullshit into the next paragraph \u2014 one that reveals Trump will also spend billions of dollars without addressing the root causes of homelessness!<\/p>\n
Brace yourself. It gets ugly almost immediately.<\/p>\n
\nShifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.\u00a0 Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.\u00a0 My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Hell yeah, we\u2019re bringing back involuntary commitment! (Maybe the draft will be next!) It\u2019s time to\u00a0exhume John Kellogg<\/a>\u00a0and see if he can\u2019t enema the homelessness out of the homeless. Or, more likely, we\u2019ll just see whether it\u2019s possible to\u00a0torture<\/em>\u00a0the homeless out of people in federal institutions that are only indistinguishable from prisons by the orderlies\u2019 willingness to be\u00a0even\u00a0more inhumane<\/em><\/a>\u00a0than the average screw.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear Trump prefers the indefinite discomfort of the unhoused to the momentary \u201cdisorder and fear\u201d he claims routinely bother citizens who actually have houses and acceptable levels of substance abuse. It\u2019s unclear where all of these unhoused people will be forcibly housed because the man who laid the groundwork for this hateful brand of conservatism basically\u00a0burned that system to the ground<\/a>\u00a0during his eight years in office.<\/p>\n
(Trust me, there are also a lot of eugenics enthusiasts behind this resurrection of forcible commitment because throwing \u201csubpar\u201d humans into inhumane circumstances has always put the lead in their pencil. This administration has no shortage of people with a head full of bad wiring willing to push people out the Overton window for the next four years, knowing there\u2019s a pardon in their future if they happen to go\u00a0a bit too Special-K<\/a>\u00a0during this particular purge.)<\/p>\n
First against the wall en route to the padded room:<\/p>\n
\n(i) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use;<\/em><\/p>\n
(ii) \u00a0\u00a0enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;<\/em><\/p>\n
(iii) \u00a0enforce prohibitions on urban squatting;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Legalize weed all you want but it\u2019s still a federal crime, so get used to being abused, pot smokers who look possibly unable to pay rent. As to anyone else not fortunate enough to have a roof over your head, you\u2019ll soon have one, even though it won\u2019t actually be anyplace anyone would willingly call \u201chome.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is just ground work, which is ghastly considering how awful it already is. There\u2019s an undercurrent that suggests anyone not living in the way the Trump government wants them to probably has mental health issues. Nothing in this order suggests the erection of affordable multi-family housing might reduce homelessness. Nothing in the order suggests expanding the social service safety net might prevent more people from becoming homeless. That vacuum is instead filled with presumptions about the inherent dangerousness of homeless people, which allows the administration to justify them being detained en masse and tossed into whatever federal institution is still semi-operable.<\/p>\n
The only mention of funds being allocated are directed solely towards\u201dremoval\u201d efforts targeting homeless people. The only mention of addressing mental health issues is a series of restrictions that threaten to remove even\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0funding from existing social programs if they can\u2019t demonstrate (using getting-set-up-for-failure metrics) what they do actually reduces homelessness.<\/p>\n
Most specifically, the administration says there will be\u00a0no<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0additional funds allocated for actually providing housing for people currently without homes.<\/p>\n
\nThese actions shall include, to the extent permitted by law, ending support for \u201chousing first\u201d policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cPull yourself up by your bootstraps,\u201d says the Trump administration, which first takes your boots because you\u2019re probably just using them to stash drugs and then your bootstraps because you might try to hang yourself with them.<\/p>\n
Now that Trump has decided it\u2019s okay to lock up the homeless for being homeless while pretending it\u2019s all about providing (forcibly applied) mental health care, it\u2019s only a matter of time before he moves on to the rest of the people he thinks are sick in the head, ranging from transgender people seeking psychiatric assistance to political opponents he routinely publicly disparages as insane, stupid, or otherwise mentally deficient.<\/p>\n
This is undiluted evil from an administration that\u2019s no longer even willing to pretend its ultimate goal is to secure their existence and a future for whatever children are considered white enough to be given an opportunity to thrive in the former Land of the Free \u2014 a downhill slope greased with the blood of the less fortunate, overseen by an administration that is nothing more than a bunch of greasy, overfed thumbs pressing down on the scales of justice.<\/p>\n
Trump Administration Says It\u2019s Going To Start Locking Up Homeless People<\/a><\/p>\n
More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:<\/strong><\/p>\n
ICE, Georgia Sheriff\u2019s Office Combine Forces To Keep A Salvadoran Journalist Locked Up Indefinitely<\/a>
ICE Claims Officer Was \u2018Assualted\u2019 During An Illegal Search Of A Hospital But The Recording Shows Something Else<\/a>
DOJ Approves T-Mobile\u2019s Latest Merger Despite Admitting It\u2019s Terrible For Consumers And Competition<\/a><\/p>\nThe post Trump Administration Says It\u2019s Going To Start Locking Up Homeless People<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t‘I won’t let people forget either!’ (Photo by DON EMMERT\/AFP via Getty Images)\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n We\u2019ve finally got a Stalin to call our own. Just like Soviet Russia, homelessness is now basically a criminal offense, thanks to Trump\u2019s latest executive order, which pretends it\u2019s about crime but actually just wants to put homelessness people in places where other Americans won\u2019t be inconvenienced by them.<\/p>\n
Like most Trump executive orders,\u00a0it\u2019s got Orwell all over it<\/a>:<\/p>\n
\n\u201cEnding Crime And Disorder On America\u2019s Streets\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
What\u2019s the crime and disorder so troubling it needs yet another executive order that further expands the power of US law enforcement past the troubling amount it already possesses? Tough to say, since it\u2019s the president saying it, and he\u2019s never been great with words. Even with ghostwriters, this is barely coherent:<\/p>\n
\nEndemic vagrancy, disorderly behavior, sudden confrontations, and violent attacks have made our cities unsafe.\u00a0 The number of individuals living on the streets in the United States on a single night during the last year of the previous administration \u2014 274,224 \u2014 was the highest ever recorded.\u00a0 The overwhelming majority of these individuals are addicted to drugs, have a mental health condition, or both.\u00a0 Nearly two-thirds of homeless individuals report having regularly used hard drugs like methamphetamines, cocaine, or opioids in their lifetimes.\u00a0 An equally large share of homeless individuals reported suffering from mental health conditions. \u00a0The Federal Government and the States have spent tens of billions of dollars on failed programs that address homelessness but not its root causes, leaving other citizens vulnerable to public safety threats.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Yep. Drink that all in. DID YOU VOTE FOR THIS, REGRETFUL TRUMP VOTERS?<\/p>\n
The first sentence does a lot of conflation in service of the ultimate goal. It also does the usual bloodlust thing where it pretends US crime rates are the worst they\u2019ve ever been while not-so-slyly insinuating the (made-up) crime problem is the result of too\u00a0much<\/em>\u00a0compassion towards the less-fortunate.<\/p>\n
The conflation is followed by stats that aren\u2019t supported by any citations. And that\u2019s followed by two compounded assertions (again, without citations to supporting facts) that most homeless people are both (1) addicted to hard drugs, and (2) suffering from mental health conditions.<\/p>\n
The final claim is the lousiest, at least in this context. Trump claims the government has wasted billions of dollars trying to \u201caddress\u201d homelessness while never bothering to examine the root causes. Trump expects you to just sort of ride that wave of bullshit into the next paragraph \u2014 one that reveals Trump will also spend billions of dollars without addressing the root causes of homelessness!<\/p>\n
Brace yourself. It gets ugly almost immediately.<\/p>\n
\nShifting homeless individuals into long-term institutional settings for humane treatment through the appropriate use of civil commitment will restore public order.\u00a0 Surrendering our cities and citizens to disorder and fear is neither compassionate to the homeless nor other citizens.\u00a0 My Administration will take a new approach focused on protecting public safety.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Hell yeah, we\u2019re bringing back involuntary commitment! (Maybe the draft will be next!) It\u2019s time to\u00a0exhume John Kellogg<\/a>\u00a0and see if he can\u2019t enema the homelessness out of the homeless. Or, more likely, we\u2019ll just see whether it\u2019s possible to\u00a0torture<\/em>\u00a0the homeless out of people in federal institutions that are only indistinguishable from prisons by the orderlies\u2019 willingness to be\u00a0even\u00a0more inhumane<\/em><\/a>\u00a0than the average screw.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear Trump prefers the indefinite discomfort of the unhoused to the momentary \u201cdisorder and fear\u201d he claims routinely bother citizens who actually have houses and acceptable levels of substance abuse. It\u2019s unclear where all of these unhoused people will be forcibly housed because the man who laid the groundwork for this hateful brand of conservatism basically\u00a0burned that system to the ground<\/a>\u00a0during his eight years in office.<\/p>\n
(Trust me, there are also a lot of eugenics enthusiasts behind this resurrection of forcible commitment because throwing \u201csubpar\u201d humans into inhumane circumstances has always put the lead in their pencil. This administration has no shortage of people with a head full of bad wiring willing to push people out the Overton window for the next four years, knowing there\u2019s a pardon in their future if they happen to go\u00a0a bit too Special-K<\/a>\u00a0during this particular purge.)<\/p>\n
First against the wall en route to the padded room:<\/p>\n
\n(i) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0enforce prohibitions on open illicit drug use;<\/em><\/p>\n
(ii) \u00a0\u00a0enforce prohibitions on urban camping and loitering;<\/em><\/p>\n
(iii) \u00a0enforce prohibitions on urban squatting;<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Legalize weed all you want but it\u2019s still a federal crime, so get used to being abused, pot smokers who look possibly unable to pay rent. As to anyone else not fortunate enough to have a roof over your head, you\u2019ll soon have one, even though it won\u2019t actually be anyplace anyone would willingly call \u201chome.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is just ground work, which is ghastly considering how awful it already is. There\u2019s an undercurrent that suggests anyone not living in the way the Trump government wants them to probably has mental health issues. Nothing in this order suggests the erection of affordable multi-family housing might reduce homelessness. Nothing in the order suggests expanding the social service safety net might prevent more people from becoming homeless. That vacuum is instead filled with presumptions about the inherent dangerousness of homeless people, which allows the administration to justify them being detained en masse and tossed into whatever federal institution is still semi-operable.<\/p>\n
The only mention of funds being allocated are directed solely towards\u201dremoval\u201d efforts targeting homeless people. The only mention of addressing mental health issues is a series of restrictions that threaten to remove even\u00a0more<\/em>\u00a0funding from existing social programs if they can\u2019t demonstrate (using getting-set-up-for-failure metrics) what they do actually reduces homelessness.<\/p>\n
Most specifically, the administration says there will be\u00a0no<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0additional funds allocated for actually providing housing for people currently without homes.<\/p>\n
\nThese actions shall include, to the extent permitted by law, ending support for \u201chousing first\u201d policies that deprioritize accountability and fail to promote treatment, recovery, and self-sufficiency<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\u201cPull yourself up by your bootstraps,\u201d says the Trump administration, which first takes your boots because you\u2019re probably just using them to stash drugs and then your bootstraps because you might try to hang yourself with them.<\/p>\n
Now that Trump has decided it\u2019s okay to lock up the homeless for being homeless while pretending it\u2019s all about providing (forcibly applied) mental health care, it\u2019s only a matter of time before he moves on to the rest of the people he thinks are sick in the head, ranging from transgender people seeking psychiatric assistance to political opponents he routinely publicly disparages as insane, stupid, or otherwise mentally deficient.<\/p>\n
This is undiluted evil from an administration that\u2019s no longer even willing to pretend its ultimate goal is to secure their existence and a future for whatever children are considered white enough to be given an opportunity to thrive in the former Land of the Free \u2014 a downhill slope greased with the blood of the less fortunate, overseen by an administration that is nothing more than a bunch of greasy, overfed thumbs pressing down on the scales of justice.<\/p>\n
Trump Administration Says It\u2019s Going To Start Locking Up Homeless People<\/a><\/p>\n
More Law-Related Stories From Techdirt:<\/strong><\/p>\n
ICE, Georgia Sheriff\u2019s Office Combine Forces To Keep A Salvadoran Journalist Locked Up Indefinitely<\/a>
ICE Claims Officer Was \u2018Assualted\u2019 During An Illegal Search Of A Hospital But The Recording Shows Something Else<\/a>
DOJ Approves T-Mobile\u2019s Latest Merger Despite Admitting It\u2019s Terrible For Consumers And Competition<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We\u2019ve finally got a Stalin to call our own. Just like Soviet Russia, homelessness is now basically a criminal offense, thanks to Trump\u2019s latest executive order, which pretends it\u2019s about crime but actually just wants to put homelessness people in places where other Americans won\u2019t be inconvenienced by them. Like most Trump executive orders,\u00a0it\u2019s got […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":129162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/trump-yelling-GettyImages-624424334-c2cqVq.jpg?fit=1024%2C697&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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