Minneapolis, on the verge of being occupied by Trump’s troops

It didn’t matter that the temperature was below freezing. Nor that Donald Trump has threatened to send troops to the city to quell the protests. This Thursday, in the snow, a group of demonstrators gathered outside the Minneapolis federal building where Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) maintains the central base of its massive immigration operation in the city. Throughout the day, they shouted at the masked agents who came and went from the building. On several occasions, they endured tear gas and pepper balls fired to disperse them. Every so often, when the wind picked up, they coughed and choked on the lingering chemical agents. A handful were arrested.

It has taken just over a week of daily protests for Trump to consider invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to use the military to quell an internal uprising or invasion, to control the situation in Minnesota, now the epicenter of citizen resistance against the president’s immigration policies. The tension, however, is far from dissipating on the streets of Minneapolis, especially after Wednesday night when there was a second shooting in a week by a federal agent.

“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 on Thursday on his social media platform, Truth, in response to clashes between federal agents and protesters on Wednesday night after a Venezuelan migrant was shot in the leg during his arrest. The Department of Homeland Security maintains that the agent who fired the shot acted in self-defense after being “beaten” by the detainee, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, and two other undocumented migrants who allegedly attacked the officer with shovels and broomsticks.

Faced with the president’s threat, state and local leaders urged the public to remain calm and demonstrate peacefully to avoid the feared scenario of U.S. troops showing up in Minneapolis. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee who lost the election, addressed Trump directly, saying, “Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are.” He also appealed to the state’s residents: “I know this is scary. We can—we must—speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. We cannot fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants,” he posted on X.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, also a Democrat, flatly rejected the possibility of Trump invoking the Insurrection Act. “Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here,” he stated on social media.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy the U.S. Armed Forces within the country or take control of the National Guard, which is normally under the command of each state, to combat an internal armed uprising. It was last invoked in 1992, when the then-governor of California asked President George H.W. Bush for help in controlling the riots that erupted in Los Angeles after four white police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King, an African American man.

Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff and the mastermind behind the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant offensive, asserted on a right-wing radio program that what is happening in Minneapolis “is clearly an insurrection against the federal government,” which would justify the president’s deployment of the military. Trump has already threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to respond to protests against his immigration agenda in other Democratic-run cities where he has sent immigration agents, such as Chicago and Portland, but so far he has not done so.

In Minneapolis, the Trump administration is accusing state and local officials of stirring up protests and promoting violence against immigration agents. White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said Thursday that the president’s statements about potentially invoking the Insurrection Act in Minnesota “spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country, elected officials who are using their platforms to encourage violence against federal law enforcement officers, who are encouraging left-wing agitators to unlawfully obstruct legitimate law enforcement operations.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told reporters at the White House that she hopes Minnesota will begin working with the federal government to get criminals off the streets. “If anything doesn’t change with Governor Walz, I don’t anticipate the that the streets will get any safer or more peaceful. Governor Walz and his leadership team need to come to us and find out how we can work together like we have in many other states,” she added.

The high-ranking official again defended ICE’s actions in the city, despite the fact that an immigration agents fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen and mother of three, last week in broad daylight. The government has repeatedly stated in recent days that immigration agents have “total immunity.”

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