The Pentagon has Reportedly Called In 1,500 Active Duty Soldiers to Suppress Residents Protesting ICE Brutality in Minneapolis

The surge of militarized ICE and border patrol agents into Minneapolis already amounts to an occupation of a major American city by our own government—exactly as many of us warned. Now Trump is planning an official military occupation.

The Washington Post reports:

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 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.”

These troops are not being prepared to suppress riots. They are being prepared to crack down on protests. Trump keeps claiming that his opponents are turning America into a “Third World country.” But he’s the one giving us all the trappings of a tin-pot dictatorship, where the strongman’s rule has to be enforce by soldiers on the streets.

The Executive Watch is a project of the Institute for the Study of Modern Authoritarianism, and its flagship publication The UnPopulist, to track in an ongoing way the abuses of the power of the American presidency. It sorts these abuses into five categories: Personal Grift, Political Corruption, Presidential Retribution, Power Consolidation, and Policy Illegality. Click the category of interest to get an overview of all the abuses under it.

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