Donald Trump escalated his confrontation with Minnesota on Thursday morning, threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy military forces to Minneapolis unless state leaders stop what he called “professional agitators and insurrectionists” from interfering with federal immigration enforcement.
“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, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The threat came hours after the second ICE-involved shooting in Minneapolis in just over a week, an incident that further inflamed a city already reeling from the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good on January 7.
What Sparked The Latest Crisis
On Wednesday night, federal agents attempted to arrest a Venezuelan man they alleged was in the country illegally. According to the Department of Homeland Security, the man drove off, crashed into a parked car, and fled on foot. When an agent attempted to apprehend him, DHS says the suspect resisted and two people emerged from a nearby home, attacking the agent with a shovel and broom handle. The agent opened fire, shooting the man in the leg.
The shooting triggered immediate protests in the Hawthorne neighborhood of north Minneapolis. Videos showed tear gas filling the air as federal agents clashed with residents, with protesters throwing fireworks and rocks at officers.
But this incident cannot be understood in isolation. It followed the January 7 fatal shooting of Renee Good, an event that has become a flashpoint in the ongoing battle between the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation efforts and communities resisting them.
The Shooting That Started It All
Good was a 37-year-old poet, writer, and mother of three who lived in Minneapolis with her wife and six-year-old son. On the morning of January 7, she and her partner had stopped in their neighborhood to monitor federal agents conducting immigration raids, part of an informal network of “legal observers” that had formed in response to the administration’s massive enforcement surge.
According to video footage reviewed by multiple news organizations, Good had parked her Honda Pilot diagonally in the street, partially blocking traffic while unmarked government vehicles conducted operations nearby. ICE agent Jonathan Ross approached the vehicle. What happened next is bitterly disputed.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said Good ignored commands to exit her vehicle and used it as a weapon, attempting to run over the agent in “an act of domestic terrorism.” The agency claims Ross was struck by the vehicle and suffered internal bleeding.
But video footage tells a different story. An ABC News analysis found that Good could be seen turning her steering wheel to the right, away from Ross, just over one second before the first shot was fired. The time between the first and second gunshot was just 399 milliseconds.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey didn’t mince words: “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit.” He followed that assessment with a more direct message: “To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”
What Is The Insurrection Act?
The Insurrection Act of 1807 is one of the most potent and least constrained presidential powers in American law. It allows the president to deploy active-duty military forces domestically to suppress rebellion, enforce federal law, or protect constitutional rights when state authorities are unable or unwilling to do so.
The law functions as an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which ordinarily prohibits the military from acting as a domestic police force. Under the Insurrection Act, a president can federalize state National Guard units or send in regular Army troops without the consent, or even over the objections, of state governors.
In its 230-year history, the Act has been invoked in response to 30 crises, according to the Brennan Center for Justice. Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy used it to enforce school desegregation in the South. Lyndon Johnson invoked it multiple times during the civil rights era. George H.W. Bush was the last president to use it, deploying troops to Los Angeles during the 1992 riots following the Rodney King verdict.
The law has not been invoked in more than three decades.
Minnesota’s Response
Governor Tim Walz, who ran as Kamala Harris’s vice presidential candidate in 2024, responded to Trump’s threat with characteristic directness.
“I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” Walz wrote on X. “But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Minneapolis Mayor Frey, meanwhile, has called the federal presence unsustainable. “This is not sustainable,” he said at a Wednesday night press conference. The city, along with the state of Minnesota and the city of St. Paul, has filed federal lawsuits against the Trump administration, arguing that ICE’s tactics violate constitutional rights including free speech and freedom from unreasonable seizures.
U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez is expected to rule as early as Friday morning on whether to restrict ICE’s use of non-lethal force, stops of motorists who follow ICE vehicles, and arrests of people who are obeying police perimeters. In a separate post Thursday, Trump referred to Menendez, a Biden appointee, as a “highly respected” judge for her decision to wait a few days before ruling on broader restraining orders.
The Escalation Pattern
This is not the first time Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act. He floated the idea during anti-deportation protests in Los Angeles last October and again in response to demonstrations in Portland. In each case, local leaders rejected the federal presence while the administration blamed “hateful rhetoric” from Democratic politicians for violence against its agents.
The Trump administration has sent an estimated 2,000 federal agents into the Minneapolis area since January 6, with more on the way. DHS says the surge was prompted by what it called the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out, targeting the metropolitan area in response to viral social media allegations about Somali-run daycare centers receiving fraudulent federal subsidies. Minnesota officials investigated and found the allegations largely unfounded.
The administration has also begun recruiting military lawyers to support its efforts. CNN reported that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is asking military branches to identify 40 judge advocate general officers, with 25 to serve as special assistant U.S. attorneys in Minneapolis.
What Happens If Trump Invokes The Act
If Trump follows through on his threat, active-duty military personnel could be deployed to Minneapolis over the objections of both the governor and mayor. The troops would have authority to make arrests, disperse crowds, and enforce federal law.
Legal experts are divided on whether the current situation meets the statute’s requirements. The Insurrection Act requires either a request from a state legislature or governor, or a determination that state authorities are unable or unwilling to protect constitutional rights. Minnesota officials argue they are protecting constitutional rights, not violating them, and that federal agents are the ones provoking violence.
The last time a president considered invoking the Act in the face of state opposition was during the George Floyd protests in 2020, when Trump wanted to deploy troops to cities including Minneapolis. Federal officials talked him out of it.
The circumstances in 2026 are different. The Supreme Court recently ruled that Trump’s previous attempts to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities without state consent exceeded his authority. Trump’s social media post suggested the Insurrection Act could be a workaround to that ruling.
A City On Edge
Minneapolis residents are drawing uncomfortable parallels to 2020, when the city became ground zero for a national reckoning on race and policing after a white police officer murdered George Floyd by pinning his neck to the pavement for more than nine minutes.
Good’s family has hired the same law firm that represented the Floyd family in their successful $27 million settlement with the city. Her widow, Becca Good, said in a statement that Renee “leaves behind three extraordinary children; the youngest is just six years old and already lost his father.”
Governor Walz proclaimed January 9 as “Renee Good Day” in Minnesota. Protests under the banner “ICE Out For Good” have spread to cities across the country, with an estimated tens of thousands marching in Minneapolis on January 10.
For now, the city waits for Judge Menendez’s ruling, for the next federal agent’s decision, and for the president’s next post.