President Trump on Thursday threatened to deploy U.S. military forces under the Insurrection Act to Minneapolis if state officials don’t stop protests against the sprawling immigration enforcement operation.
Why it matters: Every modern use of the Insurrection Act has come either at a governor’s request or to expand civil rights protections over state objections. Trump would flip that script, sending troops against a governor’s wishes to crush protests of the federal government’s own actions.
- The situation has grown increasingly tense amid a surge in ICE activity and last week’s fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent.
The big picture: The Insurrection Act, which hasn’t been invoked in decades, would allow the president to effectively bypass court rulings and tap authority scholars have warned is overly broad and ripe for misuse, Axios’ Avery Lotz writes.
Driving the news: Trump’s threat, posted to Truth Social, came hours after the second ICE shooting in the Twin Cities in a week, when an agent shot a Venezuelan man in the leg during what the Department of Homeland Security described as an “ambush.”
- Nearly 3,000 federal immigration agents have flooded the Twin Cities, more than the combined police forces of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
What they’re saying: In his post, Trump vowed to act “if the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionist from attacking the patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job.”
Prior to the shooting, Gov. Tim Walz decried the “campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government” in an address to the state.
- Walz encouraged Minnesotans to continue to protest peacefully and reiterated that bystanders are allowed to film federal agents.
- “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,” he said.
On Thursday morning, Walz posted to X what he described as a “direct appeal” to the president to “turn the temperature down” and “stop this campaign of retribution. In the same post, he urged Minnesotans to “speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.”
- His office told Axios that the governor is “attempting to get ahold of the president,” and is “convening business leaders, members of Congress, other governors and civic leaders to make an appeal to the administration.”
Zoom in: While most demonstrations in the last week have been peaceful, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said some protesters near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting threw ice chunks and fireworks at law enforcement, and the Star Tribune reported three federal agents’ cars were vandalized.
- Minneapolis police, Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies and Minnesota State Patrol troopers responded to control the crowd.
The other side: Mayor Jacob Frey called the situation in the Twin Cities “unsustainable” at a Wednesday night news conference.
- “This is an impossible situation that our city is being put in. We’re in a position right now where we have residents that are asking a very limited number of police officers we have to fight ICE agents on the street, to stand by their neighbors,” he said.
- “We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another.”
Axios’ Kyle Stokes contributed to this report.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with comments from Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz.