President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown.
The president’s threat comes a day after a federal immigration officer shot and wounded a Minneapolis man. That shooting further heightened the fear and anger radiating across the Minnesota city since an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot a young mother, Renee Good in the head.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will 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,” Trump said in social media post.
Presidents have indeed invoked the Insurrection Act more than two dozen times, most recently in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush to end unrest in Los Angeles. In that instance, local authorities had asked for the assistance.
The Department of Homeland Security says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down. ICE is a DHS agency.
However, the US president has offered only words of support for Iranian protesting against the economic downtown in that country, even urging them to seize government institutions.
The Iranian authorities claim that the US and Israel have had a “big hand” in the ongoing unrest, framing it as a foreign-backed “terrorist war.”
“All Iranian patriots, keep protesting,” Trump said in a speech to the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday and in a parallel post on Truth Social.
“Take over your institutions if possible. And save the names of the killers and the abusers that are abusing you,” he added, promising they would “pay a very big price.”
