Trump threatens to use Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to ICE protests | Minnesota
While Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to protests against federal immigration enforcement operations in Minneapolis on Thursday, Minnesota governor Tim Walz urged demonstrators in Minneapolis overnight to remain peaceful amid rising tensions.
One to mail On Thursday morning’s Truth Social, Trump said he would invoke the Insurrection Act and “swiftly put an end to the disgrace that is taking place” in Minnesota if “Minnesota’s corrupt politicians do not follow the law and prevent professional agitators and rioters from attacking ICE Patriots.”
Later Thursday morning, Walz released a statement: “I’m making a direct appeal to the president: let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of revenge. That’s not who we are. And a call to Minnesotans: I know this is scary. We can – we must – speak loudly, urgently, but also peacefully – we can’t fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants.”
Trump’s warning that he could invoke the Insurrection Act on Thursday came on a night when Walz urged people in Minneapolis to protest peacefully following news Wednesday evening that a federal officer shot a man in the leg during a sting operation against immigrants on the city’s north side.
The incident sparked protests in Minneapolis on Wednesday night; as the city was on edge just a week after a federal immigration officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.
“State investigators were on scene in North Minneapolis,” Walz said. wrote overnight at X. “I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets. But Minnesota will remain an island of civility, justice, community and peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
The Guardian reported that hundreds of protesters gathered at the scene of the attack on Wednesday night. At a press conference later, Minneapolis police Chief Brian O’Hara said protesters were “engaging in illegal behavior” and urged people to leave the area.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said the attack “occurred during a targeted traffic stop by federal law enforcement in Minneapolis directed at an illegal alien from Venezuela” on Wednesday. The man allegedly resisted and attacked an officer, DHS said, and said “two other men emerged from a nearby apartment and also attacked the officer.” He said the police officer “took a defensive shot to defend his life.” The federal government’s account could not immediately be verified.
The city of Minneapolis said the man who was shot was taken to a local hospital with “non-life-threatening injuries.”
Walz on Wednesday night Statements conveyed “The news does not do justice to the level of chaos, disruption, and trauma that the federal government has rained down on our communities,” he said of the continued federal presence in Minnesota.
Walz said between 2,000 and 3,000 armed federal agents were deployed across the state and claimed that ICE agents, whom he described as “armed,” “masked,” and “poorly trained,” were “going door to door ordering people to show them where their neighbors of color live.”
“They pull people over indiscriminately, including U.S. citizens, and demand to see their papers,” Walz said.
“Grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked pickup trucks, kidnapping innocent people with no warning and no due process,” he added.
“Let’s be very, very clear,” Walz said. “This long ago ceased to be an immigration enforcement issue. Instead, it is an organized campaign of brutality by our own federal government against the people of Minnesota.”
In his speech, Walz called on Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to “end this occupation.”
“You’ve done enough,” he said.
On Thursday, Noem told reporters she had “no plans to withdraw from Minnesota” and described conditions in Minnesota as “violent and violations of the law in many places.”
Noem also said she discussed the Insurrection Act with Trump on Thursday morning and that Trump “absolutely has the constitutional authority to use it.”
“Without any change with Governor Walz, I don’t anticipate the streets will be any safer or more peaceful,” Noem added.
Multiple federal prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington, D.C., resigned over the Trump administration’s handling of the investigation into Good’s fatal shooting. Six attorneys from the U.S. attorney’s office in Minnesota resigned Tuesday, reportedly over the justice department’s reluctance to investigate the ICE agent who fatally shot Good. A justice department spokesman confirmed the resignations in a statement to the Guardian but denied they were related to the Minneapolis shooting.
