The Pentagon in the United States has ordered some 1,500 active duty soldiers in Alaska to be ready to be deployed to Minnesota, where large protests have been taking place against federal immigration raids, US media reported.<\/p>\n
Two unnamed officials told Reuters on Sunday that two infantry battalions from the Army\u2019s 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and specialises in operating in arctic conditions, have been given prepare-to-deploy orders to the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, where protests against raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are continuing, despite freezing conditions.<\/p>\n list of 4 items<\/span>end of list<\/span><\/section>\n In a statement emailed to The Associated Press news agency, Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell did not deny that the orders were issued and said the military \u201cis always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.\u201d<\/p>\n ABC News was the first to report the development.<\/p>\n The news comes as widespread protests continue in the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul against violent tactics used by close to 3,000 federal ICE agents deployed to the city, following the shooting death of Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Nicole Good, 37.<\/p>\n Multiple people have been injured as the raids continue, with ICE also reporting on Sunday that a man had died in ICE detention after being arrested in Minneapolis.<\/p>\n Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old from Nicaragua, died in ICE custody at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday afternoon, 12 days after he was arrested in Minneapolis, ICE said in a statement.<\/p>\n The US Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is also part of the federal operation in Minnesota, said that a federal officer shot a Venezuelan man in the leg on Wednesday as the immigration raids continued.<\/p>\n The Minneapolis Fire Department also said that a six-month-old baby and a child were hospitalised on Wednesday after they sustained injuries from tear gas deployed by ICE agents, according to Minnesota Public Radio (MPR).<\/p>\n ICE director Todd M Lyons said on Wednesday that US federal agents had arrested 2,500 people since starting their operation in Minnesota.<\/p>\n However, human rights advocates and legal observers have expressed concerns about overcrowding and inhumane conditions in the country\u2019s immigration detention facilities, as well as on deportation flights.<\/p>\n Hundreds of Venezuelan men were deported to the Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism (CECOT) maximum security prison in El Salvador in March 2025.<\/p>\n An expose on CECOT, which was reportedly delayed from airing on CBS News\u2019s 60 Minutes programme last month, prompting backlash, went to air on Sunday night.<\/p>\n The potential\u00a0deployment of troops to Minnesota comes after the Pentagon sent some\u00a0700 US Marines to<\/span>\u00a0Los Angeles in June and July in response to protests over aggressive immigration enforcement operations under way there, although the soldiers\u2019 role was limited to guarding two federal properties in the greater Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n At the time, Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a law from 1807, to broaden the soldiers\u2019 role, but ultimately did not do so.<\/p>\n Trump has again threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in recent days, this time in Minnesota, before appearing to walk back the threat a day later, telling reporters at the White House that there was not a reason to use it \u201cright now\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I needed it, I\u2019d use it,\u201d Trump said. \u201cIt\u2019s very powerful.\u201d<\/p>\n Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Sunday described the 3,000 ICE and border control agents waging Trump\u2019s crackdown on undocumented immigrants as an \u201coccupying force that has, quite literally, invaded our city\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s ridiculous, but we will not be intimidated by the actions of this federal government,\u201d Frey told CNN\u2019s State of the Union on Sunday. \u201cIt is not fair, it\u2019s not just, and it\u2019s completely unconstitutional.\u201d<\/p>\n Thousands of Minneapolis citizens are exercising their First Amendment rights, and the protests have been peaceful, Frey said, referring to the section of the US Constitution that covers freedom of speech and the right to peacefully protest.<\/p>\n Governor Tim Walz has also mobilised the Minnesota National Guard, although no units have been deployed to the streets.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem has said that the crackdown will continue \u201cuntil we are sure that all the dangerous people are picked up, brought to justice and then deported back to their home countries\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Pentagon in the United States has ordered some 1,500 active duty soldiers in Alaska to be ready to be deployed to Minnesota, where large protests have been taking place against federal immigration raids, US media reported. Two unnamed officials told Reuters on Sunday that two infantry battalions from the Army\u2019s 11th Airborne Division, which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-us-canada-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inernews.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recommended Stories <\/h2>\n
![\"epa12652552](\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/epa_696d739ac6d8-1768780698.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80\")
Insurrection Act<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"