Pentagon readies troops for Minnesota deployment
US soldiers in Alaska are on standby to be deployed to the mid-western state of Minnesota, amid rising tensions after an ICE agent killed a woman.
The Pentagon has ordered about 1500 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 US officials have told Reuters.
The US Army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the mid-western state escalates, the officials said, though it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if officials in the state don’t stop protesters from targeting immigration officials after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Increasingly tense confrontations between residents and federal officers have erupted in Minneapolis since Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was shot dead behind the wheel of her car by ICE officer Jonathan Ross on January 7.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said on Sunday that any military deployment would exacerbate tensions in Minnesota’s largest city, where the Trump administration has already sent 3000 immigration and US Border Patrol officers to deal with largely peaceful protests.
“That would be a shocking step,” Frey said on NBC’s Meet the Press program.
“We don’t need more federal agents to keep people safe. We are safe.”
Clashes in the city intensified after the federal ICE surge and the killing of Good.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem told CBS’ Face the Nation program on Sunday that Frey should set up “a peaceful protest zone” for demonstrators.
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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.
ICE agents are targeting other immigrant communities as well.
On Sunday, agents entered a St Paul house and removed an elderly man who was wearing only underwear and a blanket as onlookers shouted at them to leave.
If US troops are deployed, it is unclear whether the Trump administration would invoke the Insurrection Act, which gives the president the power to deploy the military or federalise National Guard troops to quell domestic uprisings.
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.
