Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act over Minnesota protests

Protesters face federal law enforcement agents and police officers in riot gear following the shooting of a Venezuelan man by an ICE agent in Minneapolis. Photo / Octavio Jones, AFP

US President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke an emergency law that allows domestic deployment of the military, as protests roil Minnesota after a federal agent shot dead a woman last week.

Tensions rose further and more protests broke out as another person was shot and wounded by a federal agent in the frigid northern city that is a Democratic stronghold.

Trump reacted on his social media platform Truth Social with his latest threat to invoke the Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law that allows the President to deploy soldiers for law enforcement purposes to put down unrest deemed to be an insurrection. It has not been used in more than 30 years.

In recent months, Trump has threatened several times to use the law as he reacted angrily to protests and court decisions blocking his drive to deploy the National Guard in his muscled crackdown on illegal immigration.

But so far he has stopped short of resorting to the law as he presses an agenda that has drawn accusations of authoritarian overreach and periodic mass rallies with the mantra “No Kings”.

“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 ... and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump posted on social media.

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, addressing reporters outside the White House, declined to say if she thinks Trump should invoke the law.

“I think that the President has that opportunity in the future. It’s his constitutional right, and it’s up to him if he wants to utilise it to do it,” Noem said. Asked if Trump is likely to take this major step, she said: “I don’t know.”

Tensions rose further as an immigration agent shot and injured a man in Minneapolis on Wednesday evening (local time), triggering further protests.

The shooting marked the second time in a week an ICE agent had shot someone in Minneapolis.

The previous shooting resulted in the death of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good on January 7. This sparked ongoing protests and a surge of federal agents into the northern US city.

Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said the latest shooting resulted from a struggle between an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent and a man he was trying to apprehend.

“During the struggle, the federal agent discharged his weapon, striking one adult male,” O’Hara told reporters at a press conference.

Amid the tussle, two people emerged from a nearby residence and attacked the federal agent with a snow shovel and a broom handle, the Department of Homeland Security said, identifying the wounded man as an illegal immigrant from Venezuela.

The man suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound to his leg and was transported to a hospital for treatment, while the two others were taken into custody, officials said.

The Insurrection Act was last invoked in 1992 by President George HW Bush at the request of the Republican governor of California, who was facing unprecedented riots in Los Angeles following the acquittal of police officers who had beaten Rodney King, a black motorist, the previous year.

-Agence France-Presse