President Donald Trump threatens to invoke Insurrection Act in Minnesota. What is it?

President Donald Trump is threatening to use the Insurrection Act in Minnesota to tamp down unrest and the pushback against ICE agents working in the state.

Trump gave the warning early Thursday, Jan. 15, in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, after a federal agent shot a man in the leg Wednesday night in north Minneapolis and hundreds of protesters descended on the scene. The Department of Homeland Security said the officer fired defensive shots after being attacked with a snow shovel and broom.

“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.

The Insurrection Act of 1807 allows the president to send military forces, including active-duty troops and federalized National Guard units, to cities to suppress civil disorder and to enforce federal laws. The act has been invoked in response to 30 crises, most recently in 1992 to respond to the Los Angeles riots following the police beating of Rodney King, according to according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower invoked the Insurrection Act to send federal troops to enforce the integration of schools in Little Rock, Ark.

The Supreme Court has ruled that the president alone can determine if the act’s conditions have been met.

The Posse Comitatus Act generally prohibits the president from deploying the military inside the United States. Invoking the Insurrection Act allows the president to temporarily override the Posse Comitatus Act and deploy active-duty military within the United States to enforce the law or suppress insurrections or rebellions in certain circumstances, including:

Minnesota officials criticized Trump’s threat.

“Minnesota needs ICE to leave, not an escalation that brings additional federal troops beyond the 3,000 already here,” he said.

Minneapolis City Councilwoman Robin Wonsley said she believes Trump has been itching to go to war with cities that do not align with his administration’s political goals.

“Minneapolis is a testing ground in which he’s trying to normalize, legalize these very terroristic actions...that we often see happen abroad, actions that we wage against communities abroad,” Wonsley said during an appearance on CNN. He’s doing that right here in his own homelands, his own country, that he took an oath to serve and protect. So, I am not surprised.”

Rep. Kelly Morrison said that Trump has chosen “to inflame tensions and escalate his retribution-fuelled attacks on our state every single day. It is unacceptable, it is dangerous, and it must stop.”

Roughly 3,000 federal agents have been sent to Minneapolis in recent weeks as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.

The law does not include definitions for “insurrection” or “rebellion,” giving the president broad authority to decide what qualifies. The president’s decision is generally not reviewable by courts except in limited circumstances.

Tensions between federal agents and Minneapolis residents have been rising since an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Good on Jan. 7 at 34th Street and Portland Avenue S. On Jan. 14, confrontations flared up again when an federal agent shot a Venezuelan man fleeing authorities in a car. Federal authorities said the agent was “attacked” with a snow shovel and a broom.