Trump
threatens to use Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to ICE protests
Protests
continue across state as governor urges peace a week after ICE agent shot and
killed Renee Good
Anna
Betts
Thu 15
Jan 2026 14.26 EST
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/15/trump-insurrection-act-minnesota-ice-protests
Donald
Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota in response to
protests in Minneapolis against federal immigration enforcement operations, as
Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, overnight urged demonstrators in Minneapolis to
be peaceful amid escalating tensions.
In a post
on Truth Social, Trump said he would use the Insurrection Act and “quickly put
an end to the travesty that is taking place” if the “corrupt politicians of
Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and
insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE”.
Later on
Thursday morning, Walz put out a statement that said: “I am making a direct
appeal to the president: let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of
retribution. This is not who we are. And an appeal to Minnesotans: I know this
is scary. We can – we must – speak out loudly, urgently but also peacefully. We
cannot fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants.”
Trump’s
warning that he might invoke the Insurrection Act came as, overnight, Walz
urged people in Minneapolis to protest peacefully after it was reported on
Wednesday evening that a federal officer had shot a man in the leg during an
immigration enforcement operation on the north side of the city.
The
incident sparked protests in Minneapolis.. The city remains on edge just one
week after a federal immigration officer there shot and killed Renee Nicole
Good.
“State
investigators have been on the scene in North Minneapolis,” Walz wrote on X
overnight. “I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence
in the streets. But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of
community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
The
Guardian reported that several hundred protesters gathered at the scene of the
shooting. At a news conference later, the Minneapolis police chief, Brian
O’Hara, said protesters had been “engaging in unlawful behavior” and urged
people to leave the area.
The
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said that the shooting occurred as
“federal law enforcement officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop in
Minneapolis of an illegal alien from Venezuela”. The DHS alleged that the man
resisted and attacked an officer, and said that two other individuals emerged
from a “nearby apartment and also attacked” the officer, who, the department
said “fired a defensive shot to defend his life”. The federal government’s
account could not immediately be verified.
The city
of Minneapolis has said that the man who was shot was taken to a local hospital
with “apparent non-life-threatening injuries”.
On
Wednesday evening, Walz delivered remarks on the federal presence in Minnesota,
in which he said that “news reports simply don’t do justice to the level of
chaos and disruption and trauma the federal government is raining down upon our
communities”.
Walz said
that between 2,000 and 3,000 armed federal agents had been deployed across the
state and claimed that the ICE agents, whom he described as “armed”, “masked”
and “undertrained”, were “going door to door ordering people to point out where
their neighbors of color live”.
“They’re
pulling over people indiscriminately, including US citizens, and demanding to
see their papers,” Walz said.
“Just
plain grabbing Minnesotans and shoving them into unmarked vans, kidnapping
innocent people with no warning and no due process,” he added.
“Let’s be
very, very clear,” Walz said. “This long ago stopped being a matter of
immigration enforcement. Instead, it’s a campaign of organized brutality
against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government.”
During
his remarks, Walz called on Trump and Kristi Noem, the homeland security
secretary, to “end this occupation”.
“You’ve
done enough,” he said.
On
Thursday, Noem told reporters that she had “no plans to pull out of Minnesota”
and describes the conditions on the ground in Minnesota “as violent, and a
violation of the law in many places”.
Noem also
said she discussed the Insurrection Act with Trump, and that Trump “certainly
has the constitutional authority to utilize that”.
“If
anything doesn’t change with Governor Walz, I don’t anticipate the streets
getting any safer or more peaceful,” Noem added.
Asked
about what it would take for Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act during a
White House press briefing, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary,
said: “That’s only a question, frankly, the president can answer.” She added
that Trump’s statement on Truth Social “spoke very loud and clear to Democrats
across this country, elected officials who are using their platforms to
encourage violence against federal law enforcement officers”.
Earlier
this week, multiple federal prosecutors in Minnesota and Washington DC resigned
over the Trump administration’s handling of the investigation into the fatal
shooting of Good. Six attorneys from the US attorney’s office in Minnesota
quit, reportedly over the justice department’s reluctance to investigate the
ICE agent who fatally shot Good. A justice department spokesperson confirmed
the resignations in a statement to the Guardian but denied they were related to
the Minneapolis shooting.
The
American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota announced it had filed a
class-action lawsuit against the Trump administration on behalf of three
community members, alleging that immigration agents violated their
constitutional rights.
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