Hundreds more active-duty soldiers have been given orders to prepare for possible deployment in Minnesota, amid ongoing tensions and concern that Donald Trump may invoke the Insurrection Act to quash anti-immigration enforcement protests.
The Pentagon has ordered members of an Army military police brigade based at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, to be on standby, sources familiar with the matter told MS NOW.
The Independent has contacted the Pentagon for comment about the reports of further preparation orders. A spokesperson told MS NOW, “We have nothing to announce at this time, and any tip about this is pre-decisional.”
The outlet reported that at least a few hundred soldiers were given the prepare-to-deploy order on Tuesday.
It comes after previous reports that roughly 1,500 active-duty soldiers were preparing for possible deployment in Minneapolis and other Minnesota cities, following the protests in the wake of the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good.
Service members are assigned to two infantry battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and trained for cold-weather operations, according to The Washington Post, citing defense officials. ABC News first reported the move Saturday.
“The Department of War is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon,” Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell told The Independent in a statement at the time.
Pentagon officials added that placing troops on alert was simply “prudent planning.”
Trump has repeatedly suggested he could deploy active-duty military against Americans after demonstrations escalated in the wake of the killing of 37-year-old Good, who was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer earlier this month.
The president has said he “felt horribly” about Good’s death, but labeled protesters “professional agitators and insurrectionists” in a state run by “corrupt politicians.” The Department of Justice is also investigating what critics have labeled spurious obstruction allegations.
The rarely invoked 19th-century Insurrection Act allows the president to dispatch active-duty troops and federalize National Guard service members to occupy a state and city led by Democratic officials and his political opponents.
It was last invoked by former president George H.W. Bush to suppress the Los Angeles riots in 1992 after the acquittal of four police officers over the beating of Rodney King.
Last year, the president began ordering National Guard troops to several Democratic-led cities, an effort that one federal judge rebuked as “a national police force with the president as its chief.”
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