President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to send military forces to quell escalating protests over the deployment of federal immigration agents in Minnesota.
“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,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
A federal immigration agent shot and injured a Venezuelan man in Minneapolis on Wednesday night, igniting hours of clashes between protestors and law enforcement officers in the state’s most populous city. The shooting happened one week after an unarmed U.S. citizen was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in her vehicle a few blocks from her home.
Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement that federal agents had been trying to arrest the Venezuelan man in a targeted traffic stop when he fled the scene. McLaughlin said the man was in the U.S. illegally and alleged that he tried to attack the agents when they caught up with him, leading to the shooting.
The Trump administration has threatened in recent weeks to use the Insurrection Act to tamp protests in Minneapolis, which surged after the killing of Renee Good, the 37-year-old woman fatally shot by ICE officer Jonathan Ross last week. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche called the Minneapolis protests an “insurrection” in a post on X last night, adding they are “a direct result of a FAILED governor and a TERRIBLE mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement. It’s disgusting.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Waz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey have slammed the Trump administration’s violent immigration enforcement agenda in the state, and have called for federal agents to be removed from the state.
Sydney Carruth is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW. Recommended
