MINNEAPOLIS — US President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke an 1807 law and deploy troops to quell persistent protests against the federal officers sent to Minneapolis to enforce his administration’s massive immigration crackdown.
The protests flared after a man was shot and wounded by an immigration officer on Wednesday, further raising the fear and anger across the city since Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent on Jan. 7.
Witness video shows the moment federal agents gained access to a Minneapolis home on Wednesday night following an ICE-involved shooting.
According to DHS, federal agents were conducting a “targeted traffic stop” when a Venezuelan national resisted arrest and started to “violently assault” an officer.
Tensions continued to flare on Thursday night outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building near Minneapolis, where police have used pepper balls, percussion grenades, and tear gas to try to disperse crowds.
The use of tear gas came after several instances of protesters kicking and banging on vehicles entering and leaving the facility Thursday.
Around 10:00 p.m., a line of Customs and Border Protection officers moved down the driveway, pushing protesters back. As that happened, a separate team of officers approached from the side, CNN’s Shimon Prokupecz reported from the scene.
“Out of nowhere, the other team of federal law enforcement officers come from this other direction and start firing the percussion grenades and then they started with the tear gas,” Prokupecz said.
Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used federal law, to deploy the US military or federalize the National Guard for domestic law enforcement, over the objections of state governors.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump said in social media post.
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said he would challenge any such action in court. He’s already suing to try to stop the surge by the Department of Homeland Security, which says officers have arrested more than 2,500 people since Nov. 29 as part of an immigration operation in the Twin Cities called Metro Surge.
The operation grew when ICE sent 2,000 officers and agents to the area early in January. ICE is a DHS agency.
A federal judge in Minnesota on Thursday ordered the release of a Liberian man four days after heavily armed immigration agents broke into his home using a battering ram and arrested him.
US District Judge Jeffrey Bryan said in his ruling that the agents violated Garrison Gibson’s Fourth Amendment rights against unlawful search and seizure.
“To arrest him, Respondents forcibly entered Garrison G.’s home without his consent and without a judicial warrant,” he said.
Marc Prokosch, Gibson’s attorney, said he was “thrilled” by the judge’s order. He had filed a habeas corpus petition, used by courts to determine if an imprisonment is legal, and called the arrest a “blatant constitutional violation” since the agents did not have a proper warrant.
Gibson’s wife was inside their Minneapolis home with the couple’s 9-year-old child during the raid. Prokosch said she was deeply shaken by the arrest. — Agencies
