Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send U.S. military forces to Minnesota as protests related to federal law-enforcement activity have escalated in Minneapolis. The Insurrection Act, a 19th-century law that gives presidents authority to use the military domestically, has been invoked more than two dozen times, though it has rarely been used since the 20th century’s Civil Rights Movement, according to an Associated Press report.
The AP said Trump’s plan would be unusual because experts in constitutional and military law told the news organization that the criteria for invoking the act are not clearly met in Minneapolis. Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program, said it would represent what he characterized as an extreme departure from historical standards. “This would be a flagrant abuse of the Insurrection Act in a way that we’ve never seen,” Nunn said, adding, “None of the criteria have been met.”
William Banks, a Syracuse University professor emeritus who has written extensively on the domestic use of the military, also described the situation as out of the ordinary. He said it was “a historical outlier” because the violence Trump wants to end “is being created by the federal civilian officers” the president has sent to the area. Banks cautioned, however, that Minnesota officials would face “a tough argument to win” in court, saying judges are typically hesitant to challenge presidential military decisions and often defer to the president on them.
The Associated Press report traced how the Insurrection Act is supposed to function by describing the law’s historical origins and how its use has differed across eras. It said George Washington signed the first version in 1792, authorizing him to mobilize state militias when “laws of the United States shall be opposed, or the execution thereof obstructed.” It said Washington and John Adams used the law to quash citizen uprisings against taxes, including liquor levies and property taxes viewed as essential to the early republic’s survival.
The report said Congress expanded the law in 1807, restating presidential authority to counter “insurrection or obstruction.” Nunn said the early statutes reflected an Anglo-American tradition limiting military intervention in civilian affairs, except “as a tool of last resort.” In the AP report’s description, that historical framing is part of why experts questioned the legal fit for Minneapolis.
On Trump’s side, the AP said the president argues that Minnesota officials and citizens are impeding U.S. law by protesting his agenda and the presence of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and Customs and Border Protection officers. Nunn said ICE has legal authority to enforce federal immigration laws, but he argued the agency’s behavior has gone beyond its legal function. “ICE has the legal authority to enforce federal immigration laws,” he said, “But what they’re doing is a sort of lawless, violent behavior” that goes beyond that function and “foments the situation” Trump is seeking to suppress.
Nunn also linked his criticism to what he said is a constitutional requirement that the president faithfully execute the laws. He said Trump must wield his power, including over immigration and the Insurrection Act, “in good faith,” arguing that a president could not intentionally create a crisis and then follow it with a crackdown.
The AP report described the Minneapolis-St. Paul region’s scale of federal involvement while contrasting it with local policing capacity. It said there are between 2,000 and 3,000 federal authorities in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, compared with Minneapolis, which has fewer than 600 police officers. It also said protesters’ and bystanders’ video showed violence initiated by federal officers, with interactions growing more frequent since Renee Good was shot three times and killed.
The report said court challenges have blocked some of Trump’s prior efforts to deploy the National Guard, while also noting that Trump would likely argue he does not need state permission to send troops under the Insurrection Act. It said the modern logic of that argument traces to Abraham Lincoln’s 1861 position that Southern states could not legitimately secede. The AP report said Lincoln convinced Congress to give him express power to deploy U.S. troops without asking into Confederate states he contended were still in the Union, and it said Lincoln used the act as a legal basis to fight the Civil War.
Nunn said the report’s historical account shows that situations beyond a clear insurrection still require either a local request or another trigger Congress added after the Civil War, including protecting individual rights. The AP said Ulysses S. Grant used the individual-rights provision to send troops to counter the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacists who ignored the 14th and 15th amendments and civil rights statutes.
The AP also described deployments around labor conflict and immigration in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when governors sought help. It said Rutherford B. Hayes granted state requests during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 after clashes among striking workers, state forces and local police led to dozens of deaths. The report said Grover Cleveland granted a Washington state governor’s request—when the area was then described as a U.S. territory—to help protect Chinese citizens attacked by white rioters, and it said Woodrow Wilson sent troops to Colorado in 1914 during a coal strike after workers were killed.
For the post–Civil War civil rights era, the AP said the pattern of use shifted again. It said that once the Civil Rights Movement began, presidents sent authorities to Southern states without requests or permission because local authorities defied U.S. civil rights law and fomented violence themselves. The AP cited Dwight Eisenhower enforcing integration at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, and said John F. Kennedy sent troops to the University of Mississippi after riots over James Meredith’s admission, and then pre-emptively to prevent violence after George Wallace’s “Stand in the Schoolhouse Door” to protest integration at the University of Alabama.
The AP report also described a later episode in Selma, Alabama, saying Lyndon Johnson protected the 1965 Voting Rights March from Selma to Montgomery after George Wallace’s troopers attacked marchers during their first peaceful attempt. It said Johnson later sent troops to multiple U.S. cities in 1967 and 1968 after clashes between residents and police escalated, and it said the final invocation of the Insurrection Act came in 1992 in Los Angeles.
In the 1992 episode, the AP said riots erupted after a jury failed to convict four white police officers of excessive use of force despite video showing them beating Rodney King. It said California Gov. Pete Wilson asked President George H.W. Bush for support, and Bush authorized about 4,000 troops. The AP said Bush publicly expressed displeasure over the trial verdict, promised to “restore order,” and directed the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation, and that two of the officers were later convicted in federal court.