President Donald Trump and his top aides frequently use the word “insurrection” more to describe anti-ICE protests in cities around the country, most recently Minneapolis.
President Donald Trump and his top aides frequently use the word “insurrection” to describe anti-ICE protests in cities around the country,most recently Minneapolis.
On Thursday Trump threatened in a social media post to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy US troops to Minnesota. This is the latest in a string of threats to utilize the law during Trump 2.0.
Here’s thelatest threat:
Trumptold New York Times reportersthis month that invoking the Insurrection Act could allow him to get around legal decisions against him.
“If I feel it’s important to invoke the Insurrection Act, which I have the right to do, that’s a different thing, because then I have the right to do pretty much what I want to do. But I haven’t done that,” he said.
With that context, here’s some background on the law.
Trump has repeatedly suggested he could invoke the Insurrection Act in order to send US troops to cities. He has also tried to label far left anti-fascist, or Antifa, protesters, asdomestic terrorists.
“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trumpsaid in October. “If I had to enact it, I’d do that. If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I do that.”
The law allows the deployment of troops in the US in certain limited situations. First passed in 1792, it was last tweaked in 1871.
The Insurrection Act works in tandem with the Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in 1878 and generally prohibits the use of the military inside the US.
First, a state’s governor or legislature can request it. That’s what happened in 1992, the last time the Insurrection Act was invoked. Back then, President George H.W. Bush got a request from then-California Gov. Pete Wilson for help addressing riots in Los Angeles.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walzseems unlikelyto request that kind of help. Instead, Trump could theoretically say he needs the military to enforce federal authority.
Thepertinent languageincludes this, which seems to give the president the final say when he or she, “considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.”
Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy both invoked the Insurrection Act over the wishes of governors in order to facilitate school integration after the Supreme Court’s landmarkBrown v. Board of Educationruling. Eisenhower stood down the Arkansas National Guard in order to deploy the 101st Airborne Division in Little Rock.
TheBrennan Center for Justiceat New York University has a full list of the 30 Insurrection Act invocations.
This story has been updated with additional information.