Pentagon readies 1,500 troops for potential Minnesota deployment, officials say | US military

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty troops in Alaska to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota, site of large protests against the government’s deportation campaign, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday.

The U.S. Army has placed those units on readiness orders for deployment in the event of escalating violence in the Midwestern state, officials said, although it is unclear whether any of them will be sent.

Donald Trump has threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if state Democratic officials don’t stop protesters from obstructing immigration officials after an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Increasingly tense clashes between residents and federal agents have erupted in Minneapolis since Renee Good, 37, a mother of three, was fatally shot while driving by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.

On Saturday, Jake Lang, an anti-Muslim, anti-Semitic Christian nationalist who was pardoned by Trump for assaulting police officers during the 2021 Capitol riot, tried unsuccessfully to rally support for the immigration crackdown in Minneapolis.

Only five people joined Lang’s anti-Muslim rally, two of whom held a banner reading “Americans Against Islamization” during which he promised to “burn a Koran.” They were met by hundreds of counter-protesters, who covered Lang with spray string, doused him with water in the freezing weather and chased him away amid boos. However, images of Lang and one of his five supporters bleeding after scuffles with protesters were eagerly shared online as evidence of the violent chaos in Minneapolis.

The city’s mayor, Jacob Frey, said Sunday that any military deployment would be “ridiculous” and would only exacerbate tensions in Minnesota’s largest city, where the Trump administration has already sent 3,000 immigration and border patrol agents who have been met with largely peaceful protests.

“It would be a shocking step,” Frey told NBC News. “We don’t need more federal agents to keep people safe. We are safe.”

Clashes between federal agents and protesters in the city intensified after Good’s killing, which the Trump administration called justified.

Kristi Noem, the secretary of Homeland Security, told CBS News on Sunday that Frey should create “a peaceful protest zone” for demonstrators. The protesters’ goal, however, is not simply to express their disagreement, but to make life difficult for immigration officials, by booing them and whistling to alert their immigrant neighbors of their presence.

Trump has repeatedly cited an unrelated scandal involving the theft of federal funds intended for Minnesota welfare programs to justify sending in immigration agents. The president and administration officials have pointed the finger at the state’s Somali immigrant community.

ICE agents also target other immigrant communities in the Twin Cities. On Sunday, officers entered a St Paul home and removed an elderly man who was wearing only underwear and a blanket as passersby shouted at them to leave. The man was a member of the Hmong community, which came to the region from Laos starting in the 1970s after siding with the United States in the Vietnam War. According to the Pew Research Center, about one-third of the Hmong population in the United States is immigrants.

If active duty troops are deployed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would formally invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives the president the authority to deploy the military or federalize states’ National Guard troops to quell domestic uprisings. Even without invoking the law, a president can deploy active-duty forces for certain domestic purposes, such as protecting federal property, which Trump cited to justify sending marines to Los Angeles last year.

In addition to active forces, the Pentagon could also attempt to deploy newly created National Guard rapid response forces in the event of civil unrest. “The War Department is always prepared to carry out the orders of the Commander in Chief if called upon,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said, using the Trump administration’s preferred name for the Defense Department.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the order, which was first reported by ABC News.

While Minnesotans joke about the federal invasion of their state in winter, echoing Napoleon’s doomed invasion of Russia, and share images of ICE officers sliding on ice, the soldiers likely to be deployed specialize in cold-weather operations and are based in Alaska, officials said.

Trump sent a wave of federal agents to Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul earlier this month, part of a wave of interventions across the United States, mostly in cities led by Democratic politicians, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, all in states that voted against him in the previous three presidential elections.

Trump called the deployments necessary to protect federal property and personnel from protesters. But this month, he announced he was withdrawing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, where deployments have faced setbacks and legal challenges.

Local leaders have accused the president of overreaching the federal government and exaggerating isolated episodes of violence to justify sending in troops. Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who along with Minneapolis’ mayor is reportedly the target of a federal criminal investigation for allegedly obstructing immigration raids, has mobilized the state’s National Guard to support local law enforcement and the rights of peaceful protesters, the state Department of Public Safety announced Saturday.