CNN —

President Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, the architect of his immigration crackdown, have repeatedly used the word “insurrection” to describe the protests in Los Angeles, hinting they might invoke a rarely-used law by that name to dramatically escalate US military intervention on city streets.

But behind the scenes, administration lawyers have been working to craft a much less confrontational way of protecting the federal government’s ability to carry out immigration enforcement, hoping to avoid further inflaming the situation, according to multiple people briefed on the discussions.

At issue is the Insurrection Act , which permits the president to use military forces to end an insurrection or rebellion on US soil.

On Monday, the administration mobilized more than 700 Mari

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