Pentagon Orders 1,500 Alaska Troops to Prepare for Minnesota Deployment Amid ICE Unrest

Roughly 1,500 active-duty U.S. Army soldiers stationed in Alaska have been placed on “prepare-to-deploy” orders for potential deployment to Minnesota, according to two U.S. officials who spoke to Reuters on Sunday.

The order comes as Minneapolis continues to be rocked by large-scale protests and confrontations following a surge in immigration enforcement actions and the fatal shooting of Renee Good by an ICE agent. President Donald Trump has already deployed nearly 3,000 federal agents from ICE and Border Patrol into the Twin Cities area, and tensions have sharply escalated with local officials and demonstrators.

The troops under standby orders are assigned to two cold-weather infantry battalions in the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska. If deployed, they would likely be tasked with securing federal property and assisting federal officers, though the Pentagon has not said whether the deployment would require invoking the Insurrection Act.

Trump warned last week that if local officials continue to allow “professional agitators and insurrectionists” to target ICE officers, he will invoke the Insurrection Act. That law grants the president authority to deploy the military domestically in response to uprisings or violent civil disorder.

“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 on Truth Social.

Although the president has invoked the law in the past — including for Marine deployments to Los Angeles — it is not yet clear whether he will formally invoke it again for Minnesota. Even without doing so, active-duty forces can be deployed to protect federal assets under existing law.

Governor Tim Walz, already under DOJ investigation for allegedly impeding federal agents, has activated the Minnesota National Guard to support local police and emergency services. But state officials and Democrat leaders have condemned Trump’s actions as politically motivated overreach.

The White House has justified the surge by pointing to rampant fraud and abuse in Minnesota’s welfare programs — particularly in communities with high numbers of Somali immigrants. The president has argued that only a large-scale federal presence can root out what he called “deep systemic corruption.”

Trump’s crackdown in Minnesota follows a broader campaign to deploy federal agents to cities led by Democrat politicians, including Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Memphis, and Chicago. However, the administration recently pulled troops from several of those cities following legal challenges.

The Pentagon is also reportedly considering the use of newly created National Guard rapid-response teams trained specifically for civil disturbances, adding another layer of readiness to the administration’s escalating enforcement push.

Whether the 1,500 soldiers in Alaska will actually be deployed depends on developments on the ground. But for now, the Pentagon is bracing for the possibility that Minneapolis could become the next flashpoint in a growing national confrontation over law enforcement, immigration, and presidential authority.