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,” a 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.
Minnesota’s Democratic officials condemned 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.
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.”
This is a developing story.
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