According to two U.S. officials, the Pentagon has directed roughly 1,500 active-duty troops stationed in Alaska to ready themselves for a potential deployment to Minnesota, where large-scale demonstrations have erupted in response to the government’s deportation campaign.
The U.S. Army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the midwestern state escalates, the officials said, though it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if officials in the state do not stop protesters from targeting immigration officials after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Increasingly tense confrontations between residents and federal officers have erupted in Minneapolis since Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot behind the wheel of her car by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.
Trump has repeatedly invoked a scandal around the theft of federal funds intended for social welfare programs in Minnesota as a rationale for sending in immigration agents. The president and administration officials have singled out the state’s community of Somali immigrants.
ICE agents are targeting other immigrant communities as well.
Threat Of Troops Follows Surge Of Immigration Agents
If U.S. troops are deployed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives the president the power to deploy the military or federalize National Guard troops to quell domestic uprisings.
Even without invoking the act, a president can deploy active-duty forces for certain domestic purposes such as protecting federal property, which Trump cited as a justification for sending Marines to Los Angeles last year.
In addition to the active-duty forces, the Pentagon also could attempt to deploy newly created National Guard rapid-response forces for civil disturbances.
Local leaders have accused the president of federal overreach and of exaggerating isolated episodes of violence to justify sending in troops.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, against whom the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation, has mobilized the state’s National Guard to support local law enforcement and the rights of peaceful demonstrators, the state’s Department of Public Safety posted on X on Saturday.
(With input from Reuters)
