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CNN Legal Analyst Says Trump Has ‘Broad Authority’ To Invoke Insurrection Act In Minnesota

[Screenshot/CNN]

CNN senior legal analyst Elie Honig said on Monday that President Donald Trump has the power to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the upheaval in Minnesota.

While tensions prevail in Minnesota over immigration enforcement, Trump floated the possibility of invoking the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to nationally deploy troops to quell civil disorder, rebellion and other instances of unrest. Honig argued on “CNN News Central” that while Trump has the legal authority to do this, it would be a “dramatic step.”

“So, Kate [Bolduan], the Insurrection Act would be a very dramatic step by the president,” Honig said. “This is a law that allows the president essentially to take our military forces, and I don’t mean National Guard, I mean Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and turn them into local police, local law enforcement, which ordinarily is not permitted. A couple of things to know about the Insurrection Act. First of all, it gives the president very broad authority. He can use it if there is a rebellion or insurrection or much more broadly, even if it’s necessary to enforce federal laws.”

“So, Donald Trump certainly does have broad authority here if he wants to invoke the Insurrection Act, but I think it would be wildly out of step with the way it’s been invoked over our history,” Honig continued. 

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Trump threatened that the Insurrection Act could be invoked if politicians in Minnesota did not “stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists” from attacking Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, though he told reporters on Friday that the law is not currently needed. The Pentagon alerted 200 Texas National Guard troops this week to be on standby in case Trump followed through, according to The New York Times.

The anti-ICE protests throughout Minnesota are in response to the death of Renee Good, who was fatally shot on Jan. 7 after she hit an ICE agent with her vehicle. An ICE agent shot an illegal Venezuelan national in the leg after he got attacked with a snow shovel by three individuals.

Around 3,000 federal agents have been deployed to Minnesota in what the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has deemed the largest immigration enforcement operation in history.

Democrats have ramped up their anti-ICE rhetoric since Good’s death, including Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, who told ICE during a Jan. 7 press conference to “get the fuck out” of his city. Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar compared ICE’s operations to that of her own country of Somalia, saying that she never thought she would experience something like this in the “goddamn United States.”