1,500 US troops on standby for Minnesota amid anti-ICE protests: Report

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty US soldiers to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, the site of widespread protests against the government's deportation drive, the Washington Post reported on Sunday.

The army placed the units on prepare-to-deploy orders in case violence in the state escalates, the newspaper said, citing unnamed defence officials, adding that it is not clear whether any of them will be sent.

The Pentagon and the White House did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment.

President Donald Trump threatened on Thursday to use the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces if officials in the state do not stop protesters from targeting immigration officials after a surge in Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Tensions are high in Minneapolis, Minnesota's most-populous city, after an ICE agent shot Renee Good dead on January 7.

"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," Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday.

The soldiers subject to deployment are assigned to two US Army infantry battalions under the 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska, the Post reported.

The Insurrection Act is a federal law that gives the president the power to deploy the military or federalise Guard troops inside the US to quell domestic uprisings.

The law can be invoked when there are "unlawful obstructions, combinations or assemblages or rebellion" against federal authority. If the president deems those conditions have been met, he may use the armed forces to take actions "to enforce those laws or suppress the rebellion."

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