Has Minnesota Launched an Insurrection?

Are the sanctuary policies, rhetoric, and protests in Minnesota the collective equivalent of insurrection? A growing number of conservatives are saying they are, and that the President should forcefully do something about it very soon. While the Trump Administration has given the order for 1,500 federal troops to stand ready, none have yet been deployed.

There are several different reasons being touted as to why troops are needed, some of which have questionable justification. Here are examples:

1. Federal buildings and Federal troops are being attacked by violent protestors, and the US military is needed to help protect them from harm.
2. State officials, including the Governor, Attorney General, and Minneapolis Mayor, are actively impeding the execution of federal immigration laws.
3. Protests have become large, violent, destructive, and a threat to public safety. Local and state law enforcement are unable or unwilling to cope with these protests.

To try and justify the use of the military in Minnesota, there have been several comparisons in the news about prior uses of the “Insurrection Act” to deploy military forces. In US history, there have been 30 prior cases of the Insurrection Act being invoked. Nearly all of them align with 3 above, to quell rioting that got out of control due to racial, social, or labor unrest.

Historical cases like 1 and 2 where the insurrection act has been invoked are much rarer. The obvious comparison to 1 is the firing on Fort Sumter by South Carolinians in 1861.  This act started the Civil War. By comparison, in Minnesota, fireworks were thrown at vehicles in front of the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, and windows were broken at a federal courthouse. Bad as it is, the scope and scale of these attacks in Minnesota are profoundly less significant than what happened in South Carolina in 1861.

The closest analogy to 2 occurred in 1832 when South Carolina (a big troublemaker in the 1800’s) decided on its own that a recently imposed federal tariff law was unconstitutional and that it had no force of authority within the state. South Carolina even formalized their decision with a new term – Nullification – as if their action was sacrosanct and could not be overruled. This is similar in some ways to what Minnesota officials are claiming today regarding federal immigration law.

Not only did President Andrew Jackson threatened to deploy military troops to South Carolina to enforce the tariff law, but he also got Congress to back him up with legislation that allowed him to do so called the “Force Act”. He never had to follow through with his threat because ultimately South Carolina came to the negotiating table and compromised. President Trump has similarly threatened to deploy military troops to Minnesota to enforce federal law.

However, the situation in Minnesota right now is not as obvious a case of insurrection as it was in South Carolina in 1832. For starters, over 3,000 federal law enforcement officers are currently in Minnesota carrying out their mission of arresting and detaining criminal illegal aliens. While those officers are operating under harsh and dangerous conditions, they are still, in fact, enforcing federal law.

Also, in the South Carolina case, the entire state was formally behind the Nullification idea (an Ordinance of Nullification was passed at a state convention). Their grievance was based on a plausible economic argument that the tariff was both too high and disproportionately penalized their state relative to the northern states.

In Minnesota’s case, the entire state is not behind the principle of disregarding federal immigration law. Nearly half the voters in the state voted for President Trump and his tough immigration policies in the most recent election. And unlike in 1832, when South Carolina’s grievance was the result of a newly enacted tariff, there has been no new federal law passed recently that prompted Minnesota’s actions. Federal immigration law in the US has not substantively changed for decades.

No reasonable argument is being presented for why the Minnesota leadership is choosing to disregard federal immigration law. They have not presented any kind of logical construct for an underlying grievance (like the economic hardship case made by South Carolina in 1832).

In fact, their insistence that their position is correct only leads to absurdly illogical conclusions. For example:

1. They do not want criminal illegal aliens removed from the state and evidently prefer to have these people live in their communities (including known child molesters).
2. They believe that ICE agents are kidnappers and killers and have no other purpose than to terrorize the cities of Minnesota at the direction of a tyrant – Donald Trump.
3. They want to have our cultural heritage (both American and that of Minnesota) replaced by the cultures of incoming immigrants, Somalia’s in particular¹. That goes against one of the core tenants of becoming a naturalized US citizen – that every effort be made to assimilate into American culture.

The only consistent theme heard from the Minnesota government leaders is that they hate both Donald Trump and ICE. The rhetoric they use to express this hate is more idiocy than any assertion of injustice.

We don’t believe Minnesota is on the verge of insurrection. We do believe the state is suffering from a dangerous combination of reckless and dimwitted leadership, with a big dose of blind hate and thirst for revenge against the Trump Administration. Outside progressive forces have taken advantage of this to equip and encourage protesters to act dementedly as if they are fighting in a holy war.

However, these protesters do not represent the majority of Minnesotans, and they are fighting a make-believe war with no real cause and no real enemy. If the President does end up sending troops into Minnesota, it will be to stem ongoing chaos caused by irrational lunatic progressives, not to quell an organized rebellion that has any credible root purpose.

¹ The Somali population in Minnesota is the largest, by far, of any state in the country. Most of them are naturalized US citizens. Of those Somali’s who have been here over 10 years, half have still don’t speak English very well (Congressman Brandon Gill during House Oversight Hearing on 1/7/26). There is even an area of Minneapolis commonly known as “Little Mogadishu” that Minnesota state senator Omar Fateh (whose parents are Somali immigrants) wants to turn into a “no-go zone for white supremacists”. One wonders to whom he is referring. Members of the KKK, or the American Nazi Party? Or ICE and white people in general?