The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, the site of large protests against the government’s deportation campaign, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday.
The US military has placed units under orders to prepare for deployment if violence escalates in the Midwestern state, although it is not clear whether any will be sent, officials said.
Donald Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if state Democratic officials don’t stop protesters from obstructing immigration officials after an increase in the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Increasingly tense confrontations have erupted between residents and federal officers in Minneapolis since Renee Judd, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed behind the wheel of her car by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.
On Saturday, Jake Lange, the anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic Christian nationalist who was pardoned by Trump for assaulting police officers during the 2021 Capitol riots, tried and failed to rally support for an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.
Only five people joined Lang’s anti-Muslim rally, and two of them carried a sign reading “Americans Against Islamization,” as Lang called for it. a promise “To burn the Qur’an.” They were met by hundreds of counter-protesters, who covered Lang with aerosol thread, doused him in water in frigid temperatures and chased him to taunt. However, photos of Lange and one of his five supporters bleeding after brawls with impatient protesters have been circulated online as evidence of the violent chaos in Minneapolis.
The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said Sunday that any military deployment would be “ridiculous” and would only exacerbate tensions in Minnesota’s largest city, where the Trump administration has already sent 3,000 immigration and border patrol officers who have faced largely peaceful protests.
“This would be a shocking move,” Frey told NBC News. “We don’t need more federal agents to keep people safe. We are safe.”
Confrontations between federal officers and demonstrators in the city escalated after Judd’s killing, which the Trump administration described as justified.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS News on Sunday that Frey should set up a “peaceful protest zone” for protesters. However, the goal of the protesters is not simply to express their opposition, but to make life difficult for immigration enforcement officers, by taunting them and blowing whistles to alert their immigrant neighbors to their presence.
Trump has repeatedly brought up an unrelated scandal over the theft of federal funds intended for Minnesota welfare programs as a justification for sending immigration agents. The president and administration officials singled out the Somali immigrant community in the state.
ICE agents target other immigrant communities in the Twin Cities as well. On Sunday, agents entered a St. Paul home and removed an elderly man who was wearing only underwear and a blanket while bystanders shouted at them to leave. The man was a member of the Hmong community, who came to the region from Laos starting in the 1970s after siding with the United States in the Vietnam War. According to the report, about a third of the Hmong population in the United States are immigrants Pew Research Center.
If active duty troops are deployed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would formally invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives the president the authority to deploy the military or federalize state National Guard troops to quell domestic uprisings. Even without enacting the law, the president can deploy active-duty troops for certain domestic purposes such as protecting federal property, which Trump cited as justification for sending Marines to Los Angeles last year.
In addition to active duty troops, the Pentagon could also try to deploy newly created National Guard Rapid Response Forces to confront civil unrest. “The War Department always stands ready to carry out the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if asked to do so,” said Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the matter, which was first reported by ABC News.
While Minnesotans joke about a federal invasion of their state in the winter, echoing Napoleon’s doomed invasion of Russia and sharing photos of ICE officers sliding on the ice, the soldiers under deployment specialize in cold-weather operations and are stationed in Alaska, officials said.
Trump sent a wave of federal agents to Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul early this month, part of a wave of interventions across the United States, especially to cities run by Democratic politicians, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, all in states that voted against him in the previous three presidential elections.
Trump described the deployments as necessary to protect federal property and employees from protesters. But he said this month he would remove the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, where deployments have faced setbacks and legal challenges.
Local leaders accused the president of federal overreach and exaggerating isolated incidents of violence to justify sending in troops. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who, along with the mayor of Minneapolis, is reportedly the target of a federal criminal investigation for allegedly obstructing immigration raids, has mobilized the state’s National Guard to support local law enforcement and the rights of peaceful protesters, the state Department of Public Safety said. Announce on saturday.