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Pentagon Readies 1,500 Troops For Potential Minnesota Deployment, U.S. Officials Say
The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers in Alaska to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, the site of large protests against the government’s deportation drive, two U.S. officials told Reuters on Sunday.
The army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the midwestern state escalates, the officials said, though it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.
President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if officials in the state do not stop protesters from targeting immigration officials after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
But if the troops are deployed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would invoke the Insurrection Act. Even without invoking the act, a president can deploy active-duty forces for certain domestic purposes such as protecting federal property, which Trump cited as a justification for sending Marines to Los Angeles last year.
In addition to the active-duty forces, the Pentagon could also attempt to deploy newly created National Guard rapid-response forces for civil disturbances.
The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment on the order, which was first reported by ABC News.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform.
The soldiers subject to deployment specialize in cold-weather operations and are assigned to two U.S. Army infantry battalions under the 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska, the officials said.
Confrontations between residents and federal officers have become increasingly tense in Minneapolis, Minnesota’s most-populous city, after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good.
Trump, a Republican, has sent nearly 3,000 federal agents from ICE and Border Patrol to Minneapolis and neighboring St. Paul since early last week, as part of a wave of interventions, mostly to cities run by Democratic politicians.
He has said troop deployments in Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., Memphis and Portland, Oregon, are necessary to fight crime and protect federal property and personnel from protesters. But this month he said he was removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, which have faced legal setbacks and challenges.
Local leaders have accused the president of federal overreach and of exaggerating isolated episodes of violence to justify sending in troops.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, against whom the Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation, has mobilized the state’s National Guard to support local law enforcement and emergency management agencies, the state Department of Public Safety posted on X on Saturday.
Trump has repeatedly invoked a scandal around the theft of federal funds intended for social-welfare programs in Minnesota as a rationale for sending in immigration agents. The president and administration officials have singled out the state’s community of Somali immigrants.
The Insurrection Act is a federal law that gives the president the power to deploy the military or federalize National Guard troops inside the U.S. to quell domestic uprisings.
(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart in Washington and Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Tom Hogue, William Mallard and Matthew Lewis)
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