The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 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 told Reuters on Sunday.
The US Army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the midwestern state escalates, the officials said, though it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.
US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if officials in the state do not stop protesters from targeting immigration officials after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents.
Increasingly tense confrontations between residents and federal officers have erupted in Minneapolis since Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was fatally shot 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 3,000 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 programme. “We don’t need more federal agents to keep people safe. We are safe.”