The Insurrection Act, explained : NPR

President Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to suppress protests in Minnesota, a week after an ICE agent fatally shot a 37-year-old Minneapolis woman. 

The shooting death of Renee Macklin Good sparked protests nationwide against ICE’s continued presence in Minnesota and across the country. 

Protesters were further incensed on Wednesday evening when ICE agents in Minneapolis shot a Venezuelan immigrant in the leg during an attempted arrest. 

Writing on Truth Social, Trump said: “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, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State.”

The act is one way the president can send troops to states to restore law and order. But unlike in Trump’s National Guard deployments in 2025, the Insurrection Act would allow armed forces to carry out law enforcement functions, such as making arrests and conducting searches.

The law could open the door to significantly expanding the military’s role in quelling protests, protecting federal buildings and carrying out immigration enforcement, which some of Trump’s aides have suggested he do.

Since Thomas Jefferson signed it into law in 1807, the Insurrection Act has only been invoked about 30 times. The last instance was over three decades ago. During his second term, Trump has repeatedly brought up the idea of invoking the statute.

“If people were being killed and courts were holding us or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I’d do that,” he told reporters back in early October.

Trump has also erroneously claimed that nearly half of all U.S. presidents have invoked the law and that it was invoked 28 times by a single president, as he said during an interview with CBS’ 60 Minutes in late October.

In reality, only 17 out of 45 presidents — or 37% — utilized the law, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy organization that in 2022 tracked all Insurrection Act invocations. The group also did not find a president who invoked the emergency powers more than six times, as Ulysses S. Grant did during the Reconstruction era.

The White House did not release a statement on the president’s threat.

Here’s what to know.

How would the Insurrection Act get used?

There are three ways that the president can invoke the Insurrection Act, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

The first is at the request of a state’s legislature or governor facing an “insurrection.” The law itself does not elaborate on what qualifies as an insurrection, but legal scholars generally understand the term as referring to a violent uprising of some kind.

In the second path, the president does not need a state’s consent to deploy troops when “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” makes it “impracticable” to enforce federal laws.

The third path also does not require the affected state’s support. In this case, the president can send in the military to suppress an insurrection that “hinders the execution of the laws” or “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.”

Before invoking the Insurrection Act, the president must first order the “insurgents” to disperse within a limited amount of time.

How would troop deployments differ under the Insurrection Act?

So far during Trump’s second term, National Guard troops have been called into Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore., under a statute known as Title 10, which places the force under federal control. The operations in Memphis and Washington, D.C., were authorized under Title 32, meaning they were under state command. (The situation in D.C is unique since the federal district is not a state and therefore does not have a governor.)

Under these deployments, Guard forces are subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits federal military personnel from acting as police on American streets. It’s rooted in one of the nation’s founding principles, which opposes military involvement in civilian affairs.

The Insurrection Act, however, is a key exception to the law.

The controversial emergency powers were last used during the 1992 Los Angeles riots after the acquittal of four police officers in the beating of Rodney King.

Former President George H.W. Bush invoked the law at the request of then-California Gov.  Pete Wilson, who was worried that local law enforcement could not quell the unrest alone.

But that deployment also showed the risks of using military personnel as law enforcement. In an infamous moment, LA police officers asked a group of Marines to “cover” them as they approached a house. The Marines interpreted their request as asking them to open fire, while the police officers actually wanted them to stay on guard.

“The Marines then lay down suppressing fire. The police were completely aghast,” Mick Wagoner, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, told NPR earlier this year.

How much power does the Insurrection Act give the president?

Some of the Insurrection Act’s power comes from what’s not actually in it.

Terms like “insurrection,” “rebellion” and “impracticable” are loosely defined and give broad deference to the president, according to William Banks, professor emeritus of law at Syracuse University and an expert in national security and emergency powers.

“It’s incredibly open-ended and grants him a dramatic amount of discretion to federalize an incident,” he added.

The law also does not mention time constraints on the troop deployments. Nor does it involve Congress in the process to maintain checks and balances, Banks added.

The Insurrection Act has also been rarely tested in the courts. Trump himself described the Insurrection Act as providing legal cover.

“Do you know that I could use that immediately and no judge can even challenge you on that. But I haven’t chosen to do it because I haven’t felt we need it,” he said during the October 60 Minutes interview.

Despite its broad language, legal experts argue that historical precedent matters when it comes to the Insurrection Act.

If Trump were to invoke the law to address crime or enforce immigration laws, it would represent a sharp departure from past uses and would likely face legal challenges, according to Laura A. Dickinson, a professor at The George Washington University Law School who focuses on national security.

“ While it seems very broad on its face, it’s not a blank check,” she said.