The 1807 law that President Trump threatened to invoke Thursday to deploy the US military against anti-immigration enforcement rioters in Minnesota was last used in 1992 to stem violence that broke out in Los Angeles after four cops were acquitted of assault following the beating of black motorist Rodney King.
Responding to the latest violent demonstrations in Minneapolis after the shooting of a suspected Venezuelan illegal immigrant, Trump warned on Truth Social: “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 Insurrection Act of 1807 was approved during Thomas Jefferson’s administration, but it has been amended since then.
The original text says in cases of “insurrection, or obstruction to the laws,” the president “where it is lawful” can “call forth the militia for the purpose of suppressing such insurrection, or of causing the laws to be duly executed.”
But according to US code, the president, before invoking the act, must first order the “insurgents to disperse within a limited time.”
The US code also notes that the president may take the action “upon the request of [the state] legislature or its governor if the legislature cannot be convened.”
The Insurrection Act has been amended several times and invoked during Reconstruction and during the civil rights era to protect African Americans.
President John F. Kennedy invoked it twice — once in 1962 and again in 1963 to send National Guard troops to Alabama to enforce the desegregation of public schools.
The law was also amended after Hurricane Katrina in 2006 to include natural disasters, health emergencies and terrorist attacks.
President George W. Bush weighed invoking it but decided against it because of political concerns.
His father, President George H.W. Bush, used it twice — once to put down riots in St. Croix, US Virgin Islands following Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and again in 1992 in response to the riots in Los Angeles.
