U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act allowing him to deploy troops as protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) persist in Minneapolis.
Trump made the threat after a federal officer shot a man in the leg in Minneapolis on Wednesday after being attacked with a shovel and broom handle. The incident further heightened the sense of fear and anger radiating across the city a week after an immigration agent fatally shot a woman who was not a target of an immigration raid.
“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.
Smoke filled the street Wednesday night near the site of the latest shooting as federal officers wearing gas masks and helmets fired tear gas and grenades into a small crowd while protesters threw rocks and shot fireworks.
Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara said during a news conference that the gathering was an unlawful assembly and “people need to leave.”
Such protest scenes have become common on the streets of Minneapolis since a federal agent fatally shot Renee Good on Jan. 7 amid a massive immigration crackdown that has seen thousands of officers sent into the Twin Cities. Agents have yanked people from cars and homes and been confronted by angry bystanders who are demanding that officers pack up and leave.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey described the situation as not “sustainable.”
“This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in and at the same time we are trying to find a way forward to keep people safe, to protect our neighbours, to maintain order,” he said.
Frey described a federal force that is five times as big as the city’s 600-officer police force and has “invaded” the city, scaring and angering residents, some of whom want the officers to “fight ICE agents.” At the same time, the police force is still responsible for their day-to-day work to keep the public safe.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) says it has made more than 2,000 arrests in the state since early December and is vowing to not back down.
Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act several times across his two presidential terms — in the same city in 2020 after protests broke out after the police killing of George Floyd, and in this term for Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, cities where the administration has sent troops over concerns about violent protests that Democratic officials in those locations have said were exaggerated.
The act would enable the U.S. military and National Guard troops to perform law enforcement functions typical of local police.
Invoking the act would be a drastic step in any event, and in this scenario would be unusual given that the White House announced just two weeks ago that it was pulling back from National Guard deployments in several cities led by elected Democratic officials. That came after the administration suffered a string of defeats in courts across the U.S. from judges skeptical of the administration’s justification that conditions on the ground constituted emergencies that local law enforcement couldn’t contain.
George H.W. Bush was the last president to invoke the act, in 1992, after riots broke out in Los Angeles that would eventually kill over 60 people and cause damaged estimated at about $1 billion US. The riots came after the acquittal of police officers caught on video beating Rodney King, a Black motorist.
Man shot after chase, DHS say
In a a statement describing the events that led to Wednesday’s shooting, Homeland Security said federal law enforcement officers stopped a person from Venezuela who was in the U.S. illegally. The person drove away and crashed into a parked car before taking off on foot, DHS said.
A protesting community member attempts to protect themselves as federal agents in Minneapolis fire munitions and pepper balls after federal law enforcement agents were involved in a shooting Wednesday night. (Ryan Murphy/Reuters)
After officers reached the person, two other people arrived from a nearby apartment and all three started attacking the officer, according to DHS.
“Fearing for his life and safety as he was being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot to defend his life,” DHS said.
The two people who came out of the apartment are in custody, it said.
O’Hara said the man shot was in the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury.
The shooting took place about 7.2 kilometres north of where Good was killed.
During a televised speech before Wednesday’s shooting, Gov. Tim Walz said what’s happening in the state “defies belief.”
“Let’s be very, very clear, this long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement,” he said. “Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
Walz encouraged residents to record Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents with their phones to “help us create a database of the atrocities against Minnesotans, not just to establish a record for posterity, but to bank evidence for future prosecution.”
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche blamed Walz and Frey for the tensions in the city in a social media post.
“ICE operates in thousands of counties without incident,” said Blanche. “Men and women doing their jobs, protecting us from criminal aliens.”
State trying to stop deployment in the courts
Earlier Wednesday, a judge gave the Trump administration time to respond to a request to suspend its immigration crackdown in Minnesota.
“What we need most of all right now is a pause. The temperature needs to be lowered,” state Assistant Attorney General Brian Carter said during the first hearing in a lawsuit filed by Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
WATCH | State, federal government battle in court as street clashes continue:
Minnesota takes anti-ICE push to court
The state of Minnesota along with the cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul are suing the federal government to try and block the surge of thousands more immigration and customs enforcement officers, a move that followed an ICE officer’s fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good.
Local leaders say the government is violating free speech and other constitutional rights with the surge of law enforcement. U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez gave the U.S. Justice Department until Monday to file a response to a request for a restraining order.
The judge is also handling a separate lawsuit challenging the tactics used by ICE and other federal officers when they encounter protesters and observers. A decision could be released this week.
