Roughly 1,500 active-duty soldiers are reportedly preparing for possible deployment in Minnesota following Donald Trump’s threats to invoke the Insurrection Act to crush protests against a surge of federal immigration officers in the state.
Service members are assigned to two infantry battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and trained for cold-weather operations, according to The Washington Post, citing defense officials. ABC News first reported the move Saturday.
Pentagon officials said troops have been place on alert to respond to potentially escalating violence in the Minneapolis area, describing the move as “prudent planning.”
The president has repeatedly suggested he could deploy active-duty military against Americans after demonstrations escalated in the wake of the killing of Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Officer earlier this month. The president has labeled protesters “professional agitators and insurrectionists” in a state run by “corrupt politicians” his Department of Justice is also investigating over what critics have labeled spurious obstruction allegations.
The rarely invoked 19th century law would allow the president to dispatch active-duty troops and federalize National Guard service members to occupy a state and city led by Democratic officials and his political opponents.
It was last invoked by former president George H.W. Bush to suppress Los Angeles riots in 1992 after the acquittal of four police officers over the beating of Rodney King.
The Independent has requested comment from the Pentagon and the White House.
In a statement shared with The Pos, a spokesperson said that it was typical for the Department of Defense “to be prepared for any decision the president may or may not make.”
Good’s death and the Trump administration’s allegations that she was a “violent rioter” who committed “terrorism” have sparked nationwide protests and outrage from elected officials across the country.
Administration officials argue Good “weaponized” her vehicle by making contact with the officer as she attempted to drive away from a group of agents who were swarming around her.
The president himself suggested that Good and her now-widow were “professional agitators” and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called her a “lunatic.”
The Twin Cities are home to roughly 80,000 people of Somali ancestry, the vast majority of whom are legal residents or American citizens. But the president — seizing on a series of fraud cases involving government programs where most of the defendants have roots in Somalia — is surging federal law enforcement and Justice Department resources into the state as part of a nationwide mass deportation campaign.
A surge of federal law enforcement in the state is Homeland Security’s largest immigration enforcement operation yet, resulting in more than 2,500 arrests, with officers accused of violently targeting immigrants and citizens alike and facing off against protesters in violent clashes.
The Justice Department has also launched a criminal investigation into Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who have roundly rejected allegations and defended their response to what the mayor has called “chaos and danger” brought on the city by the Trump administration.
A federal judge meanwhile has blocked federal officers from “retaliating” against protesters and firing riot control weapons into crowds demonstrating against the administration’s operations.
District Judge Kate Menendez, who was appointed by Joe Biden, has blocked federal agents during “Operation Metro Surge” from arresting anyone who is “engaging in peaceful and unobstructive protest activity” after a wave of complaints accusing officers of targeting peaceful demonstrators in violation of their First and Fourth Amendment rights.
Officers are barred from using “chemical irritants” and “intimidation, including by pointing firearms at them, detention, and arrest,” according to the judge.
They also are blocked from “stopping or detaining drivers and passengers in vehicles” when there is “no reasonable articulable suspicion that they are obstructing officers or roads, her order says.
A federal lawsuit accused federal officers of following demonstrators and observers home, firing chemical spray and rubber bullets and threatening them with arrest.
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