MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota: A day after an immigration officer was attacked in Minneapolis, President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to the city.
The immigration officer shot and wounded a man after he was attacked with a shovel and broom handle. That shooting heightened the anger since the killing of Renee Good.
Ignoring the objections of state governors, Trump has repeatedly warned he would invoke the federal law to deploy the U.S. military, or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement.
"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 invoked the law more than 24 times, most recently in 1992, when President George H.W. Bush invoked it to help stop unrest in Los Angeles.
Trump has talked several times about using the Insurrection Act, beginning in his first term, but he has never done it. For example, in 2020, he said he might use it to stop protests after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd.
Democrat Governor Tim Walz urged the president to calm the situation and stop what he called acts of revenge. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he would challenge any use of the act in court.
He is already suing to try to stop a considerable enforcement effort by the Department of Homeland Security, which officials say has arrested more than 2,500 people since November 29 in a Minnesota operation called Metro Surge.
The operation expanded in January when ICE sent about 2,000 officers and agents to the area. ICE is part of DHS.
In Minneapolis, smoke filled the streets near the site of the latest shooting, and federal officers wearing gas masks fired tear gas into a crowd. Some protesters responded by throwing rocks and setting off fireworks.


















