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Donald Trump has threatened to send the US military to suppress protests in Minnesota, a major escalation in tensions with state officials a week after a protester was shot and killed by a federal immigration officer.
one in Post Taking to his Truth social platform on Thursday, the US President said he is prepared to invoke the 19th-century law known as the Insurrection Act to deploy federal troops in the Midwestern state.
Trump said, “If Minnesota’s corrupt politicians do not follow the law and stop professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking patriots at ICE who are simply trying to do their jobs, I will invoke the Insurrection Act, as many presidents before me have done, and immediately end this travesty in that great state.”
The President’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act is likely to heighten the already feverish situation in Minneapolis and across the country.
It comes 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, which was captured on multiple mobile phone videos, sparked outrage and widespread protests over the tactics of ICE agents, whom the Trump administration has tasked with carrying out the president’s aggressive plans to deport millions of illegal immigrants.
But the president and his allies quickly defended the officer who killed Good and doubled their support for ICE, vowing to increase the number of agents on the streets of Minneapolis and other cities.
The Department of Homeland Security confirmed late Wednesday that a federal agent had shot and wounded a second man, a Venezuelan immigrant, in Minneapolis during what DHS called a “targeted traffic stop.”
The man attempted to flee and resisted arrest, attacking an ICE officer “with a shovel or broom stick” after two other people helped him escape, the department said.
Trump has previously threatened to use the Insurrection Act in his first and second terms. The rarely used 19th-century law was last invoked by George HW Bush in 1992 when the California governor asked for military support in response to riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King.
State and local officials in Minnesota have repeatedly blamed the federal government for escalating violence in Minneapolis and urged ICE agents to leave the city.
“This is an impossible situation to create in our city,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said at a news conference after Wednesday night’s shooting. “We can’t be in a place right now in America where we have two government entities that are literally fighting each other.”
