US President Donald Trump threatened today to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces in Minnesota, after days of bitter protests over a sharp increase in the number of immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis.
Clashes between residents and federal officials have become increasingly tense after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent killed an American citizen, Renee Goode, in Minneapolis eight days ago, and protests have spread to other cities.
Trump's latest threat came hours after an immigration officer shot a Venezuelan man who the government said was fleeing after agents tried to stop his vehicle in Minneapolis.
"If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota do not obey the law and stop the professional agitators and rioters from attacking ICE patriots, who are just trying to do their job, I will enact the REVENGE ACT," Trump wrote on social media.
Trump has been criticizing the state's Democratic leaders for weeks, calling the area's Somali community "trash" that should be "thrown out" of the country. He has already deployed nearly 3.000 armed federal officers to the greater Minneapolis area, wearing military-style camouflage gear and face masks. They have often been met with loud, often angry protests from residents.
Agents arrest both immigrants and protesters, sometimes breaking windows and pulling people out of cars.
The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is overseeing Trump's crackdown on immigration, said that shortly before the shooting on Wednesday, two people attacked a federal officer with a broom handle and a snow shovel while he was wrestling with a Venezuelan man on the ground outside a house he was running towards.
The officer, according to a DHS statement, "fired defensive shots to protect his life."
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara told reporters that the FBI and the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were gathering evidence at the scene. The man's injuries were not life-threatening and he is recovering in a hospital, O'Hara said.
Speaking alongside O'Hara, Mayor Jacob Frey called the increased ICE presence an invasion and said he had seen "conduct by ICE that is abhorrent and intolerable." "We must not have a situation in America where two institutions of government are literally fighting each other," Frey said.
The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to deploy the military or call out the National Guard to suppress an insurrection — an exception to laws that prohibit the use of troops in civil or criminal law enforcement. According to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University, the law has been invoked 30 times in American history. The Supreme Court has ruled that the president alone determines whether the conditions for invoking the law are met.
Trump has already taken the unusual step of deploying National Guard members to help enforce immigration laws in Democratic-run cities, despite opposition from governors, including Los Angeles last year - a move that a judge ruled unconstitutional in December.
Trump's aggressive moves in Minnesota have divided his supporters: 59% of Republicans supported a policy that prioritizes immigration officers' arrests even if people are hurt, while 39% said officers should focus on minimizing harm to people, even if that means making fewer arrests, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.
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