- Trump issues threat after an ICE officer shoots a Venezuelan.
- He says he could deploy military force in Minnesota.
- Minnesota leaders say ICE’s actions are “disgusting and intolerable.”
WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump threatened Thursday to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces in Minnesota after days of angry protests over a surge of immigration agents on the streets of Minneapolis.
Clashes between residents and federal agents have become increasingly tense after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shot and killed a U.S. citizen, Renee Good, in a car eight days ago in Minneapolis, and protests have spread to other cities. Trump’s latest threat came a few hours after an immigration officer shot a Venezuelan who the government said was fleeing after agents tried to stop his vehicle in Minneapolis. The man was injured in the leg.
“If corrupt Minnesota politicians do not obey the law and stop professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking ICE Patriots who are just trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” Trump wrote on social media.
Trump, a Republican, has for weeks mocked the state’s Democratic leaders and called people of Somali origin “trash” who should be “kicked out” of the country.
It has already sent nearly 3,000 federal agents to the Minneapolis area, who have carried weapons through the city’s icy streets, wearing military-style camouflage suits and masks that hide their faces.
Day and night they have been met with loud, often angry protests from residents, some of whom blew whistles or banged tambourines. On Wednesday night, a crowd of nearby residents gathered near the area where the Venezuelan was shot. Some shouted in protest and federal agents set off stun grenades and released clouds of tear gas.
Later, after most residents had dispersed, a small group vandalized a car they believed belonged to federal agents, and one person spray-painted it with red graffiti that read, “Hang Kristi Noem,” a reference to the secretary of Homeland Security who oversees ICE.
Since the surge began, officers have arrested both immigrants and protesters, sometimes breaking windows and pulling people from their cars, and have been yelled at for stopping black and Latino U.S. citizens and demanding identification.
“Disgusting and intolerable”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees Trump’s immigration crackdown, identified the man its officer shot as Julio César Sosa-Celis. The administration of Trump’s predecessor, Joe Biden, had allowed him to enter the United States in 2022 through the government’s humanitarian parole program. The Trump administration has since revoked parole granted to Venezuelans and others admitted under the Biden administration.
In its statement, DHS called him a convicted felon under Minnesota law after he was caught driving without a license and giving a false name to a police officer. Court records from those cases reviewed by Reuters show he was only convicted of “misdemeanors,” which under Minnesota state law “do not constitute a crime,” and for which the maximum punishment is a $300 fine.
According to the DHS account, federal agents tried to stop Sosa-Celis in his vehicle. He fled the scene in his vehicle, crashed into a parked car and then fled on foot, DHS said.
An officer caught him and while the two were “fighting on the ground,” two other Venezuelans came out of a nearby apartment and “attacked the law enforcement officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle,” according to the statement.
Sosa-Celis broke free and began hitting the officer with “a shovel or broomstick,” prompting the officer “to fire defensive shots to defend his life,” according to the DHS statement.
Reuters could not verify the account given by DHS. The men fled into the apartment and all three were arrested after officers entered, DHS said. Sosa-Celis and the officer were recovering from their injuries at the hospital, according to department and city officials.
The Trump administration and Minnesota leaders have blamed each other for stoking anger and violence.
At a late-night news conference, Mayor Jacob Frey called the ICE surge an invasion and said he had seen “ICE behavior that is disgusting and intolerable.”
“We cannot be in a place right now in the United States where we have two government entities that are literally fighting each other,” Frey said, calling for peace.
Trump supporters divided over immigration enforcement
The Insurrection Act of 1807 is a law that allows the president to deploy the military or federalize soldiers into a state’s National Guard to quell rebellion, an exception to laws prohibiting the use of soldiers in civil or criminal law enforcement.
It has been used 30 times in American history, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University. The Supreme Court has ruled that only the president can determine whether the conditions of the law have been met.
Trump has already taken the unusual step of federalizing National Guard soldiers to help with immigration enforcement in Democratic-run cities despite objections from state governors, including Los Angeles last year, which a judge ruled in December was unconstitutional.
Trump’s aggressive moves in Minnesota have divided his supporters: 59% of Republicans favored a policy that prioritizes arrests by immigration agents even if people are hurt, while 39% said agents should focus on not harming people even if it means fewer arrests, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday.
If Trump sends troops to Minnesota, he will almost certainly face legal challenges from the state. The Minnesota attorney general’s office already sued the Trump administration this week, saying ICE agents were engaged in a “pattern of unlawful and violent conduct,” including racial profiling and forced entry into residents’ homes without a warrant. The American Civil Liberties Union also filed a similar lawsuit against the Trump administration on Thursday.
In a brief hearing Wednesday, Minnesota asked U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez to issue a temporary order restricting ICE’s surge.
Menendez ordered the Trump administration to respond on Monday, saying she would speak out after that, calling the issues raised by Minnesota’s lawsuit “enormously important.”
