These recent articles were published by the Washington Post during the period of Trump’s push of massive resources into Minneapolis.
Sharing under Fair Use derived from paid subscription allowance of up to 10 articles per month
Pentagon Readies 1,500 Soldiers to Possibly Deploy to Minnesota, Officials Say
Copyright – Washington Post. Published January 18, 2026
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2026/01/18/trump-minnesota-insurrection-act
By Dan Lamothe
Dan Lamothe joined The Washington Post in 2014 to cover the U.S. military. He has written about the Armed Forces since 2008, traveling extensively, embedding with five branches of service and covering combat in Afghanistan. A native of Chicopee, Mass., Lamothe began writing for professional newspapers in high school, and his enthusiasm for it grew while attending the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. As an undergraduate, he was deeply involved at The Massachusetts Daily Collegian, the student newspaper on campus, and led its newsroom as managing editor as a senior. In 2004, Dan joined the
Education: University of Massachusetts at Amherst, BA in journalism; University of Maryland at College Park, master’s in journalism
Minneapolis’s mayor said Sunday that the administration is trying to bait protesters into creating a pretext for an active-duty deployment.
The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, defense officials told The Washington Post late Saturday, after President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to unrest there.
The soldiers are assigned to two infantry battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and specializes in cold-weather operations.
The Army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in Minnesota escalates, officials said, characterizing the move as “prudent planning.” It is not clear whether any of them will be sent to the state, the officials said, speaking like some others on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive military planning.
The White House said in a statement that it’s typical for the Pentagon “to be prepared for any decision the President may or may not make.” Sean Parnell, a spokesman for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, said in a statement Sunday that the Pentagon is “always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.” Two officials said that the orders are unrelated to Trump’s recent rhetoric about the United States needing to take control of Greenland.
The development was reported earlier by ABC News.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday called the federal government’s surge of immigration enforcement officials, and the possible deployment of active-duty soldiers, an attempt to “bait” protesters in the city.
“We’re not going to give them an excuse to do the thing that clearly they’re trying to set up to do right now, which is these 1,500 troops,” Frey told CNN. “I never thought in a million years that we would be invaded by our own federal government.”
The Insurrection Act, a federal law dating to 1807, permits the president to take control of a state’s National Guard forces or deploy active-duty troops domestically in response to a “rebellion.” Invoking the act would be an extraordinary move and mark the first time a commander in chief has done so since President George H.W. Bush called on the military during the Los Angeles riots of 1992 that killed dozens of people and caused widespread destruction.
Typically, invoking the Insurrection Act is considered a last resort, when law enforcement personnel are unable to keep the peace during times of civil unrest.
Trump threatened Thursday to invoke the law, saying on social media that unless officials in Minnesota could stop protesters from “attacking” agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT” and “quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”
On Friday, Trump seemed to cool his rhetoric, saying there wasn’t a reason to invoke the law “right now.” He added, “If I needed it, I’d use it.”
The Trump administration has turned up the pressure on Gov. Tim Walz and other Democratic leaders in Minnesota, with the Justice Department launching an investigation into whether Walz and Frey have impeded immigration enforcement. Walz, Frey and other Democrats have said the move is an act of authoritarianism intended to silence critics of the administration’s actions.
On Sunday, Frey said his office had not yet received a subpoena in the investigation, calling the probe “deeply concerning.”
“This whole investigation would ultimately be the product of one of the most basic, foundational responsibilities that I have as mayor, which is to speak on behalf of my constituents,” he told ABC News.
Walz and Frey have pleaded for protesters to remain peaceful. On Saturday, Walz also mobilized the Minnesota National Guard to support local authorities, but he has not deployed those troops.
Minnesota has been a preoccupation of the Trump administration since at least December, when the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge, a multi-week immigration crackdown that has led to the arrest of hundreds of people and has been marked by clashes between federal agents and protesters.
ICE agents have shot two people there this month, killing Renée Good, an American citizen, and wounding a Venezuelan migrant, Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, after they attempted to detain him.
Minnesota officials have sued the Trump administration over the operation, alleging the surge in law enforcement there is a politically motivated violation of the Constitution. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison (D) said he is seeking a restraining order and called the operation a “federal invasion.”
Other domestic military deployments ordered by Trump have been legally contested, with mixed results. In the most significant of those actions, Trump seized control of the California National Guard in June over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democratic political rival. About 4,000 Guard members were deployed to Los Angeles along with a battalion of about 700 active-duty infantry Marines after protests against ICE turned violent in a few instances.
In December, Trump said he would end his efforts to keep National Guard troops deployed in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Oregon, following a 6-3 ruling by the Supreme Court that found the administration failed to identify a legal way in which the military could “execute the laws in Illinois.” At issue in those jurisdictions was whether the deployments violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a federal law that prohibits U.S. troops from carrying out civilian law enforcement actions.
Trump also has deployed more than 2,600 members of the National Guard to D.C., and administration officials recently extended that mission through the end of 2026. While that deployment remains legally contested, the president has more authority to deploy National Guard members there because it is a federal jurisdiction.
Trump Threatens Insurrection Act Deployment to Quell Minnesota ICE Protests
Copyright. Washington Post. Published January 15, 2026
By Molly Hennessy-Fiske, Maegan Vazquez, Justine McDaniel, Adela Suliman and Derek Hawkins
MINNEAPOLIS — President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota on Thursday, raising the prospect of sending U.S. troops into Minneapolis, despite opposition from state and local leaders, to quell protests over a recent federal immigration enforcement surge.
Trump, in a Truth Social post, put the onus on Minnesota politicians to stop protesters from “attacking” Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Trump wrote that if thestate couldn’t calm the protesters, whom he referred to as “insurrectionists,” he would “institute the INSURRECTION ACT … and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”
Federal agents have flooded the streets of Minneapolis in recent days, detaining people, pulling them from their vehicles, stopping U.S. citizens and shooting two people, one of whom was killed. Residents have responded by protesting the agents’ use of force and the Trump administration’s campaign to round up people who are not in the country legally.
While the ICE crackdown began late last year, tensions have escalated since Jan. 7, when an ICE officer fatally shot 37-year-old Renée Good as she and others were monitoring and protesting ICE activity on a residential street. On Thursday, authorities released new information about that shooting, which occurred as Good pulled away from ICE officers who had approached her SUV.
According to records from Minneapolis emergency services, responders who pulled Good out of her car found apparent gunshot wounds on the right side of her chest and left forearm and a possible gunshot wound to the left side of her head. They stopped trying to resuscitate her at about 10:30 a.m., records show, about an hour after she was shot.
The Insurrection Act enables a president to deploy the military on U.S. soil in extraordinary circumstances: to suppressan insurrection, civil disorder or armed rebellion. By invoking the Insurrection Act, a president empowers the military to make arrests and perform searches domestically, functions that the military is generally otherwise prohibited from performing in the United States.
Trump’s threat to invoke the law came after an immigration enforcement officer shot a man in the leg during a struggle outside a residence Wednesday evening, leading residents to flood the streets in protest and, in some cases, clash with federal authorities.
Federal officials on Thursday identified the man who was shot by law enforcement as Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan man who the Department of Homeland Security said was in the U.S. illegally after arriving in 2022. DHS has not identified the officer who shot Sosa-Celis.
Trump raised the prospect of invoking the Insurrection Act during his first term but did not do so. In 2020, he threatened to deploy troops if governors did not calm civil unrest after the death of George Floyd, a Black man whose killing by Minneapolis police ignited national protests. And in June, after protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids, he said he would “certainly” invoke the act “if there’s an insurrection.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem told reporters at the White House that she spoke with Trump on Thursday morning about invoking the Insurrection Act, calling the option his “constitutional right” but adding that she did not know whether he was likely to follow through on the threat.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would not say what it would take for Trump to invoke the act but claimed during Thursday’s press briefing that Democratic politicians “are holding their state and local law enforcement hostage” by declining to comply with federal immigration authorities sent to their cities and states by the Trump administration.
A poll published by YouGov on Thursday found a majority of Americans would oppose Trump invoking the Insurrection Act in response to the protests, with 51 percent saying they would disapprove of such a move and 35 percent saying they would approve.
It is not clear how or whether the federal government would deploy U.S. troops in Minneapolis, which is part of a broader metro area with nearly 3.8 million residents. According to a Pew Research estimate of U.S. Census Bureau data, there were about 90,000 undocumented immigrants in Minnesota in 2023, and a majority were presumed to reside in the seven counties that make up the Twin Cities metro area.
The Insurrection Act has been invoked about 30 times in its more than 200-year history. It was last invoked in 1992 during the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles and has not been used without the consent of a state’s governor for 60 years.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D), who has urged protesters to remain peaceful, has attempted to contact Trump following the threat to invoke the Insurrection Act, according to the governor’s office. He is also convening business leaders, other governors and lawmakers, his office said, to appeal to the administration to reverse course.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D) wrote on X that “Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here. My priority is keeping local law enforcement focused on public safety, not diverted by federal overreach.”
Minnesota’s congressional Democrats condemned Trump’s threat to invoke the Insurrection Act. Sen. Tina Smith told reporters that Trump’s statements “essentially amount to threats of declaring war on Minnesota.” Rep. Ilhan Omar, on X, called Trump’s threat “a blatant act of authoritarianism.”
Responding to Trump’s threat to use the Insurrection Act, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) said, “Hopefully the local officials, working with not only the federal law enforcement, ICE and other agencies, but also the local law enforcement officials, will be able to settle things down.”
Federal and local leaders traded blame late Wednesday as protesters clashed with authorities in Minneapolis following the shooting of Sosa-Celis.On Wednesday night, protesters gathered in the city to denounce immigration agents’ actions. Footage from the streets showed protesters shouting, blowing whistles, filming ICE officers with their cellphones and calling for them to leave the city amid bursts of tear gas and stun grenades.
Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said a crowd near the scene of Wednesday’s shooting was “engaging in unlawful acts,” including throwing fireworks at officers, as he urged them to disperse. Minneapolis police did not make any arrests Wednesday night, according to a city spokesperson.
At a news conference, Freydescribed an “impossible situation” in which Minneapolis’s 600 police officers are at times finding themselves at odds with some of the approximately 3,000 federal agents who have been deployed to the city.
“We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental entities that are literally fighting one another,” Frey added. He said that he hoped to force ICE out of the state through a lawsuit he and other Minnesota officials filed Monday.
U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche referred to the protests in Minneapolis on Wednesday as an “insurrection” and blamed the unrest on Walz and Frey, who he said were “encouraging violence against law enforcement.”
DHS alleged that Sosa-Celis attempted to evade arrest by driving a vehicle away from federal law enforcement officers, crashing it into a parked car and running away.
As an officer caught up with Sosa-Celis, two other men came out of a nearby property and began attacking the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle, according to DHS. Sosa-Celis then “began striking the officer with a shovel or a broom stick,” the department said, and the officer fired his weapon, hitting Sosa-Celis in the leg.
The three men fled into the nearby apartment before ICE “successfully arrested” them, according to DHS. Sosa-Celis and the officer who fired the shot were hospitalized, according to DHS.
The Washington Post was not able to confirm the government’s account of the events. DHS said officers arrested the other two people, whom they identified as Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma. The agency said both were undocumented immigrants from Venezuela. Noem claimed in a statement that the actions of the men amounted to “attempted murder of federal law enforcement.”
In an interview, Sosa-Celis’s mother, Alicia Celis, who lives in Venezuela, disputed the account. She said her son was not involved in the traffic stop and did not attack officers.
Sosa-Celis was at home when Ajorna, his roommate, called and said he was fleeing ICE, Celis said. Once Ajorna arrived home and was inside, Sosa-Celis moved to close the door, Celis said. That’s when her son was shot in the leg by an ICE officer, she said.
ICE officers broke down the front door and went inside, she said. Officers then arrested Sosa-Celis, Ajorna and Hernandez-Ledezma, who Celis said was not involved in the incident and lives in the basement.
Asked for comment on the discrepancy, DHS referred The Post to a comment from Noem earlier Thursday in which she said an agent was “beat up” in the encounter. “We‘re thankful that he made it out alive,” she said.
The federal government has sent thousands of additional officers to the city in the days since Good was shot in her car, leading to complaints from residents that the effort to detain undocumented immigrants instead resembles an armed occupation. Good’s family has hired lawyers to investigate her killing, including one of the lawyers who represented Floyd’s family.
Since returning to the White House for a second term, Trump has deployed or tried to deploy the National Guard in Los Angeles; Portland, Oregon; and Chicago to combat what he has cast as rampant crime often tied to illegal migration.
Local and state officials sued to challenge these deployments, calling them unlawful actions that infringed upon their sovereignty. They also said that law enforcement officials could manage protests without the National Guard and added that these deployments would only fuel larger protests. The Trump administration has said immigration officers and facilities have faced violence and threats and wrote in court papers that troops were needed to protect them from “cruel activists” and “violent mobs.”
Judges have handed the Trump administration a string of defeats in some of these cases, culminating in the Supreme Court saying last month that it would not allow Trump to deploy troops in the Chicago area for now. Before that, lower courts had blocked deployments in Chicago as well as Portland, and judges have rebuked the administration’s arguments that protests in these places amounted to a “rebellion.”
Days after the Supreme Court’s order, Trump announced on social media that he was “removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland.” But troops remain in New Orleans and Memphis, where state officials supported deployments, as well as in D.C., where the mayor lacks control over the D.C. National Guard.
Trump’s surge of federal immigration enforcement in Minnesota is being challenged in court.
On Wednesday, a U.S. district judge in Minneapolis declined to issue a temporary restraining order against federal immigration operations in Minnesota, in a case filed this week by the state of Minnesota and the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. The same judge, Katherine Menendez, is expected to decide this week on whether to issue a preliminary injunction against ICE activity in the Twin Cities in a case brought by six Minneapolis-area residents represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.
Tension and fear were palpable Thursday in the city.
Jamey Erickson, a 44-year-old longtime resident of Minneapolis, said residents have become wary of leaving their homes because federal immigration agents have been confronting people “indiscriminately.”
“It doesn’t matter if they’re a citizen or not,” he said.
The Growing List of Probes into Officials Trump has Criticized
Washington Post. Published Jan 18, 2026. By Jennifer Hassan
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/01/12/trump-administration-critics-investigations