(WTAQ-WLUK) — President Donald Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act several times during his first term in office, and now, he has done so again in his second stint in the White House.
His latest suggestion of invoking the Insurrection Act comes as protests in Minnesota continue after an ICE agent shot and killed a civilian, Renee Good, in Minneapolis last week. And on Wednesday night, a federal agent shot an illegal immigrant in the leg in Minneapolis when the officer was attacked with a shovel and broom handle.
Trump is now considering deploying U.S. troops to Minneapolis to end the protests against immigration enforcement, with some Republican leaders saying the situation in Minnesota is out of control.
Lawrence University political science and U.S. history professor Jerald Podair explains why Trump is considering this move.
“The Insurrection Act was passed in 1807, and its purpose is to allow the president to use the military — or in those days, they were called the state militia; now, they’re the state National Guard — in cases of rebellion or insurrection on a domestic level,” he says.
That “rebellion” or “insurrection” essentially means in situations or activities where enforcing laws has become impracticable. However, the act doesn’t allow for troops to enforce all state and local laws.
“The advantage of this act for the president is that he doesn’t need Congressional approval for this,” Podair adds.
In his first year back in office, Trump has already deployed National Guard troops to several cities. Podair says that was him informally enacting the Insurrection Act. It was later challenged by the courts, leading to the pullout of the National Guard in those cities.
But if the president formally enforces the Insurrection Act — which can also be challenged by the courts — Podair says it could come back to bite him.
“If President Trump decides to take this action, he is going to set a precedent for future presidents — some of whom may be Democratic presidents and other disobeyers of the law, who may be Republican — in the future,” he says. “You always have to be careful here not to set a precedent that your political opponents can one day exploit.”
If we look at the recent history of the filibuster, we see that what’s good for one side eventually becomes good for the other side, and not good for your side. So, you have to be careful here. Maybe you can make an argument that this is a form of rebellion or insurrection, but do you really want to have this as a precedent?
Podair explains why, after Trump threatened to use the Insurrection Act several times before, this time may be different.
“He ran for office and was elected, basically on a platform of cleaning up the immigration situation in the United States. This is exactly what he said he would do. He would not only close the borders, he would go into the cities and he would remove people. And this is, I think, of all the issues that he ran on, perhaps the closest to his heart. So, an insurrection or a rebellion directly against this policy, I think, he takes this much more personally,” Podair says.
The Insurrection Act was last issued in 1992 by then-President George H.W. Bush during the Rodney King Los Angeles riots. Pete Wilson, a Republican who was California’s governor at the time, requested the move.
Aside from that, the act has only been used 29 other times — most of them over a century ago. In more recent historical uses, it has been used for civil rights enforcement.
