Pentagon prepares 1,500 soldiers to deploy for Minnesota protests crackdown
The Pentagon has ordered some 1,500 active-duty soldiers to be prepared to deploy for crackdown on protests in Minnesota.
After the killing of an innocent woman by immigration agents sparked angry protests in Minnesota, US President Donald Trump said he would invoke the Insurrection Act.
He said last week that he would send soldiers in to help the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents there “do their job.”
US Defense Department officials told The Washington Post on Saturday that after Trump’s warning, the Pentagon had decided to prepare some troops for the possible deployment to Minnesota.
In a social media post on Thursday, Trump threatened to use the centuries-old law Insurrection Act, to crack down on the protesters in Minnesota.
“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 on his Truth Social platform.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that Trump alone is the only US official authorized to decide whether and when to send troops to Minnesota.
Despite freezing temperatures, protesters have continued to stage rallies on a daily basis, decrying the violence and the mass gathering of federal agents in the area as intimidation of US society, rather than a legitimate law enforcement operation.
In an 83-page ruling released on Friday, US District Judge Katherine Menendez issued an injunction, reminding the federal agents across the United States that they are not allowed to arrest or retaliate against peaceful protesters or use “pepper-spray or similar nonlethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools” against them.
The ruling came at a time when widespread protests and political tension had gripped Minneapolis – Minnesota’s largest city – following two recent shootings involving federal immigration agents. Those include the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, 37, by an I.C.E. agent.
Experts say Judge Menendez’s ruling represents a rare check on federal overreach and underscores the tension between different factions in US society.
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