WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump threatened to use the military to quell widescale protests in Minnesota against immigration enforcement.
Trump said he would use the “Insurrection Act,” an 1807 law that gives the president the authority to deploy the U.S. military domestically and use it against Americans under certain conditions.
Trump appeared to reference a clause in the law that said that whenever a president “considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States” impede the enforcement of federal laws, that president may “call into federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”
An increasing number of federal immigration officers have poured into Minnesota, especially the Twin Cities, since the U.S. Department of Homeland Security initiated Operation Metro Surge aimed at detaining and deporting undocumented immigrants in the state.
The actions of officers from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Border Patrol and other federal agencies have resulted in clashes and in the fatal shooting of Renee Good and the wounding of an immigrant in north Minneapolis on Wednesday night.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump demanded Minnesota politicians stop protesters from attacking ICE agents. He wrote that if Minnesota couldn’t calm the “insurrectionists,” he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”
Minnesota’s Democratic officials condemned Trump’s threat.
“Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here,” a spokeswoman for Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said. “The mayor’s priority is keeping local law enforcement focused on public safety, not diverted by federal overreach.”
And Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he’s ready to sue if the Insurrection Act is implemented.
“Donald Trump is clearly trying to create an excuse to invoke the Insurrection Act, but none exists,” Ellison said in an emailed statement. “Even after the Trump administration deployed thousands of armed, masked, and poorly trained federal agents to brutalize Minnesotans, people are responding by protesting peacefully, by organizing their communities, and by looking out for their neighbors.”
Ellison also said, “If Donald Trump does invoke the Insurrection Act, I’m prepared to challenge that action in court.”
An ‘inflammatory’ speech
Other Democrats also slammed Trump’s threat.
“Minnesotans, our state and local officials, and especially our local law enforcement have all made clear that they want the chaos to end and for the ICE agents wreaking havoc on our state to leave,” said Rep. Kelly Morrison, D-3rd District, in an emailed statement.
“President Trump is not only defying those requests – but choosing to inflame tensions and escalate his retribution-fueled attacks on our state every single day.”
Meanwhile, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her said her city is suffering from a “crisis, humanitarian and economic, that the Trump Administration manufactured and dropped in our backyards for retribution.”
“Their reckless and racist ‘operation’ is straining the emotional and financial well-being of our city,” Her said. “We will stand together and not give the president what he wants, which is a reason to invoke the Insurrection Act.”
However, Rep. Tom Emmer, R-6th District, blamed Gov. Tim Walz for the unrest, and condemned a somber prime time speech the governor gave Wednesday night.
“It’s past time for Governor Tim Walz to take accountability for his sanctuary state policies that got us here in the first place and lower the temperature,” Emmer said. “But last night’s embarrassing and inflammatory speech once again proved he is incapable of leading. The safety of Minnesotans depends on it.”
In his speech, Walz warned Minnesotans that Trump wanted chaos, confusion and “more violence on our streets.” He urged protesters to be loud, but peaceful.
“Let’s be very, very clear this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” Walz said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
The governor also urged Minnesotans to “carry your phone with you at all times” to record ICE activities.
“Help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
Trump made his threat after his supporters on social media demanded he use the Insurrection Act to quash protests in the state. Stephen Miller, a staunch anti-immigration advocate who serves as White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor, has also urged Trump to use the act that gives the president emergency powers.
Trump also made his threat after another evening of protests in the Twin Cities. Those ramped up after a man identified by the Department of Homeland Security as an undocumented Venezuelan national was shot in the leg in a home in north Minneapolis by federal agents.
Protesters who had gathered at the scene blew whistles, filmed ICE agents with their cellphones and shouted for them to leave the city amid bursts of tear gas and stun grenades.
Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act?
During his first term in office, Trump considered invoking the Insurrection Act in response to the unrest provoked by the killing of George Floyd in 2020. But advisers persuaded the president not to do so.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters she discussed the act with Trump Thursday morning, but declined to say whether she recommended its use.
“He certainly has the constitutional authority to utilize that,” Noem said. “My hope is that this leadership team in Minnesota will start to work with us to get criminals off the streets.”
The Insurrection Act is an amalgamation of different statutes enacted by Congress between 1792 and 1871. It provides an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, under which federal military forces are generally barred from participating in civilian law enforcement activities.
Joseph Nunn, an attorney with the Brennan Center for Justice, said the last time the Insurrection Act was deployed was in 1992, to respond to civil unrest after the police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. But in that instance, the then-governor of California, Pete Wilson asked for that help.
The last time the Insurrection Act was used “unilaterally,” Nunn said, was in 1965, to protect marchers from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. In fact, the act was deployed five times between 1957 and 1965, each time to protect the civil rights of Black Americans and enforce federal court orders.
Before that, the act had not been used for 130 years.
The Brennan Center for Justice seeks a reform of the Insurrection Act because it says it gives too much power to one person.
Nunn said Trump’s invocation of the law to send military troops to Minnesota “would be a flagrant abuse of the law.”
“The principles of this country have always been that using the military for civilian law enforcement is a tool of last resort,” Nunn said.
He also said that if Ellison has to sue the Trump administration over the use of the law, the attorney general would be filing “an absolutely appropriate legal challenge.”
Editor’s note: This story has been updated throughout to add comment and background. It may be updated.
Reporter Trevor Mitchell contributed to this story.
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