As tensions over immigration enforcement escalated in Minnesota and standoffs between protesters and law enforcement intensified, U.S. President Donald Trump on the 15th (local time) mentioned the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act.
On Truth Social, the president warned, "If Minnesota's corrupt politicians do not uphold the law and do not stop the professional agitators and insurrectionist forces attacking the patriots of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who are simply doing their jobs, I will invoke the Insurrection Act, used by several presidents in the past, to swiftly end the disgrace unfolding in that once-great state."
In Minneapolis, Minnesota, on the 7th, an ICE agent conducting a vehicle stop shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, 37, an American woman who resisted. Since then, protests by citizens opposing the Trump administration's ultra-hardline crackdown on undocumented immigrants have continued.
The day before, in north Minneapolis, an immigration enforcement agent opened fire while arresting a Venezuelan man suspected of overstaying. The man who was shot was reported to be in stable condition.
Both the Minnesota governor and the Minneapolis mayor are Democrats. The president's remarks are interpreted to mean he will invoke the Insurrection Act if Democratic local leaders do not work to defuse increasingly intense protests in their jurisdictions. The U.S. Insurrection Act, under specific conditions defined by law such as insurrection, grants the president authority to deploy the military domestically.