OAN Staff Katherine Mosack
11:16 AM – Thursday, January 15, 2026
President Donald Trump has warned that he can invoke the Insurrection Act if local politicians in Minneapolis, Minnesota, fail to subdue the violent protestors attacking federal officers in the area.
The Insurrection Act of 1907 authorizes the U.S. president to send military troops into an area to quell civil unrest by temporarily overriding the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts the use of the military for domestic law enforcement purposes. It has not been called upon since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, though it has been used more than two dozen times since its signing.
“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,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning.
This ultimatum comes on the heels of another ICE-related shooting in Minneapolis, the second this month.
According to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), on Wednesday evening, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were conducting a targeted traffic stop on Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a 27-year-old Venezuelan national who is in the U.S. illegally and was previously convicted of driving without a license and arrested on two counts of giving a false name to a peace officer.
Sosa-Celis fled the stop, crashed his vehicle into a parked car, and ran on foot. When an officer caught up and attempted to apprehend him, a struggle ensued in which Sosa-Celis began to resist and violently assault the officer. During the ground struggle, two other individuals emerged from a nearby apartment and attacked the officer with a snow shovel and a broom handle. Sosa-Celis then broke free and joined in, striking the officer with a shovel or broomstick.
Fearing for his life and safety while being ambushed by three individuals, the officer fired a defensive shot, striking Sosa-Celis in the leg, a non-life-threatening injury. All three suspects — Sosa-Celis, Alfredo Alejandro Ajorna, and Gabriel Alejandro Hernandez-Ledezma — fled into the apartment, barricaded themselves, and were later taken into ICE custody. The officer was also hospitalized.
While urging for peace on the streets, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.) and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey (D-Minn.) have also simultaneously condemned the federal presence in their state, framing the recent enforcement actions as an affront to the city’s values.
“Let’s turn the temperature down. Stop this campaign of retribution. This is not who we are,” Walz said. “And an appeal to Minnesotans: I know this is scary. We can — we must — speak out loudly, urgently, but also peacefully. We cannot fan the flames of chaos. That’s what he wants.”
Walz has already issued a “warning order” to the Minnesota National Guard, placing them on standby as a buffer.
However, his intent remains strategically unclear: the Guard could be deployed to resist federal overreach or to restore order locally, thereby preempting a military intervention by the Trump administration. At the time, Walz asserted that the state was “at war” with the federal government.
UPDATE – 1/15/26 – 12:33 p.m. – Further details involving the recent ICE shooting were added to the article.
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