❓WHAT HAPPENED: President Donald J. Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy U.S. military forces to Minnesota as protests escalate against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: President Trump, federal immigration agents, protesters, and violent anti-ICE protestors.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Trump referenced the Insurrection Act in a January 15, 2026, post on Truth Social in response to ongoing violent anti-ICE demonstrations in Minneapolis, Minnesota
💬KEY QUOTE: “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.” – Donald Trump.
🎯IMPACT: Invoking the Insurrection Act would allow President Trump to deploy U.S. military forces to the streets of Minneapolis to quell anti-ICE disorder.
President Donald J. Trump stated on Thursday that he will invoke the Insurrection Act in response to ongoing violent protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Minneapolis, Minnesota, unless state and local officials obey federal orders and end the demonstrations. The rarely used federal law would allow President Trump to deploy U.S. military forces to the city to quell the unrest.
“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 wrote in a post Truth Social on Thursday.
The Insurrection Act was first used by President Thomas Jefferson in 1807, though its use has been relatively rare in subsequent years. George H.W. Bush was the last U.S. president to invoke the act in 1992 to deploy troops to Los Angeles in response to the Rodney King riots.
Civil unrest in Minneapolis has intensified in recent days following the fatal shooting of an anti-ICE activist after she attempted to run over a federal immigration officer last week. Meanwhile, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) reported late Wednesday that two individuals attacked an ICE agent with a broomstick and a snow shovel during an attempted detention of a Venezuelan man. The Venezuelan man was shot in the leg during the incident.
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