The Pentagon has ordered roughly 1,500 active-duty troops to remain on standby for a possible deployment to Minnesota, where anti-ICE protests are prevalent after an officer-involved shooting that killed a woman.
Tensions between federal and state officials are growing increasingly fraught after President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, though he has since backtracked, in response to the protests. Invoking the 19th-century law would certainly inflame hostility between state leaders and federal law enforcement even further.
Active-duty personnel cannot be deployed for domestic law enforcement without using the Insurrection Act.
“The Department of War is always prepared to execute the orders of the commander in chief if called upon,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement.
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