President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to end protests over federal immigration raids in Minnesota, escalating a standoff over immigration enforcement and the limits of presidential power. In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he would use the law if Minnesota officials did not halt what he called attacks on federal immigration agents, and he suggested the move could extend to other Democratic-led states including California, Illinois and Oregon.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE, who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump wrote.
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The Insurrection Act permits a president to deploy the U.S. military domestically for civilian law enforcement purposes, including conducting searches and making arrests. Ordinarily, such roles are prohibited under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which sharply limits the use of federal troops in domestic policing. The Insurrection Act functions as a narrow exception, authorizing the president to use the armed forces “as he considers necessary” to suppress armed rebellion or domestic violence and to enforce federal law.
Presidents have turned to the Insurrection Act sparingly in modern times. Though first enacted in 1792 and updated in 1807, it has been invoked about 30 times overall, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law. Early in the republic, President George Washington used it to quell uprisings against federal authority. President Abraham Lincoln relied on it at the outset of the Civil War. In the 20th century, President Lyndon Johnson invoked the law in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., and President George H.W. Bush used it in 1992 at the request of California’s governor to help end the Los Angeles riots following the acquittals in the Rodney King beating case.
Trump’s latest threat comes amid protests in Minnesota over immigration raids carried out by federal authorities. The Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) typically receives support from state and local partners, but high-profile operations have sparked demonstrations in multiple cities in recent years, particularly in Democratic-led states that have clashed with the White House over enforcement priorities and sanctuary policies.
The question of military involvement inside U.S. borders is legally and politically fraught. While the Insurrection Act would allow federal troops to perform law enforcement duties, other statutes do not. Trump previously relied on a separate, seldom-used authority—known as Title 10—to send National Guard troops to Los Angeles last year over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. Title 10 can be used in times of “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion” against government authority, but it does not grant those troops domestic policing powers such as arrests.
Efforts to deploy Guard forces have also faced judicial pushback. In a recent case involving Chicago, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president “failed to identify a source of authority that would allow the military to execute the laws in Illinois,” a rare rebuff by a court with a 6-3 conservative majority. The ruling underscored that while presidents have wide latitude in emergencies, courts scrutinize the legal basis for using military forces in civilian law enforcement roles.
Invoking the Insurrection Act would mark one of the most aggressive federal interventions in domestic unrest in decades. Historically, presidents have often acted in concert with governors when deploying troops, particularly to restore order after natural disasters or episodes of widespread violence. A unilateral use tied to immigration enforcement would test long-standing norms and could face political and legal challenges, even as it would immediately expand the federal government’s tools to control protests and secure federal operations.
For now, Trump’s threat signals a hardening posture as his administration confronts resistance to immigration raids in Minnesota and beyond. Whether the White House moves from warning to action will turn on developments on the ground—and on whether the legal threshold for using troops to enforce federal law can be met without state cooperation.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
