Donald Trump threatened to deploy US armed forces to suppress protests in Minnesota—a move that would mark a sharp escalation in the confrontation with state authorities, coming a week after a federal immigration agent shot and killed a protester.
In a post on his Truth Social platform on Thursday, the US president said he was prepared to invoke a 19th-century law known as the Insurrection Act in order to deploy federal troops in the Midwestern state.
Clashes broke out in Minneapolis on Wednesday night, January 14, between protesters and government authorities over the tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Reuters
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota do not obey the law and fail to stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists attacking ICE patriots who are simply doing their job, I will invoke the INSURRECTION ACT—used by many presidents before me—and swiftly put an end to the travesty unfolding in what was once a great state,” Trump said.
The threat to invoke the Insurrection Act is likely to further inflame tensions in Minneapolis and across the country, where the situation is already at a boiling point.
The statement came a week after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed 37-year-old US citizen Renee Nicole Good in her car in Minneapolis.
Good’s killing, captured in several mobile phone videos, sparked widespread outrage and mass protests over the tactics of ICE agents, whom the Trump administration has tasked with carrying out an aggressive plan to deport millions of undocumented migrants.
The president and his allies, however, quickly moved to defend the officer who fired the shots and stepped up their support for ICE, pledging to increase the number of agents on the streets of Minneapolis and other cities.
Late on Wednesday evening, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed that a federal agent in Minneapolis wounded another person—a Venezuelan immigrant—during what the agency described as a “targeted vehicle stop.”
According to the department, the man attempted to flee and resisted arrest, attacking an ICE officer “with a shovel or a broom handle” after two other individuals came to his assistance.
Trump has previously threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act during both his first and second presidential terms. The rarely used 19th-century law was last applied in 1992, when George H. W. Bush deployed troops at the request of the governor of California following unrest in Los Angeles triggered by the acquittal of four police officers charged with beating Rodney King.
Minnesota’s state and city authorities have repeatedly blamed the federal government for the escalation of violence in Minneapolis and have called on ICE agents to leave the city.
“Our city has been put in an impossible position,” Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey said at a press conference after Wednesday evening’s shooting. “We cannot arrive at a situation in America where two government entities are effectively at war with each other.”