Trump Threatened to Send Military Police to Minnesota. Here’s What They Can and Can’t Do.

Filed
10:15 p.m. EST

01.22.2026

Even throughout unrest, active-duty troopers’ function in home legislation enforcement is proscribed, consultants say.

The prospect of the Nationwide Guard, active-duty Military troops and navy police all converging on Minneapolis sparked concern this week from residents already reeling from a wave of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and the deadly capturing of Renee Good.

Whether or not these deployments would truly occur, nevertheless, at all times appeared unlikely, in response to retired navy and legislation enforcement officers who spoke to The Marshall Challenge on Thursday as information of potential navy deployments unfolded.

Stories first surfaced earlier within the week that the Pentagon alerted an Military infantry battalion primarily based in Alaska to arrange to deploy to Minnesota. And on Thursday, a number of information retailers cited a Division of Protection official claiming that dozens of navy law enforcement officials from Fort Bragg in North Carolina had been ordered to arrange to go there as nicely. Individually, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz over the weekend had mobilized the Minnesota Nationwide Guard to be prepared to assist Minnesota State Police to guard protesters within the occasion of violent encounters with ICE.

The information got here every week after President Donald Trump warned that he would invoke the Riot Act if protests towards immigration enforcement ways didn’t cease. Though Trump and others in his administration began to stroll again these statements by late Thursday, former high navy leaders mentioned a navy deployment would have been an costly logistical nightmare.

Whereas the Nationwide Guard usually gives assist to state and native legislation enforcement businesses throughout disasters and instances of unrest, a maze of legal guidelines, insurance policies and authorized precedents make it extremely unlikely that energetic navy forces would be capable to play a significant function, if any in any respect, in dealing with the continuing anti-immigration enforcement protests.

Retired Military Main Gen. Randy Method mentioned on Thursday that he couldn’t think about a situation the place the Trump administration would ship 1,500 troops from the eleventh Airborne Division from Alaska to Minnesota. Method, who was as soon as performing vice chief of the Nationwide Guard, mentioned the division accommodates the Military’s solely troopers specifically educated and geared up to struggle within the Arctic. Their weapons, instruments and even their engine oil have been specifically formulated for Arctic fight, Method mentioned.

“I might say I’m 99% sure they’re not going to Minneapolis,” Method mentioned. “Why would you deploy a really scarce useful resource like that to go there? As a result of somebody mentioned it’s chilly? It could be completely insane to make use of American troops this fashion.”

There’s a a lot better probability that the navy police from Fort Bragg might be deployed, in response to Method. However primarily based on legal guidelines limiting energetic navy from home legislation enforcement, there’s little or no they’d be capable to do.

Method believes that each one they may presumably do, underneath the legislation, is station themselves at an ICE facility to guard it towards a possible menace.

Roy Taylor, a retired Military lieutenant colonel who’s now the chief of the Capitol Particular Police, a non-public safety company in North Carolina, mentioned he thinks the function of navy police must be much more low profile than that. Citing the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which restricts using the navy for civilian legislation enforcement, Taylor and others mentioned that the one secure approach for the navy police to be deployed can be as assist workers: answering telephones and writing experiences — however definitely not any function that will carry them face-to-face with protesters.

The Nationwide Guard is often deployed in a U.S. state on the course of the governor. There have been some historic exceptions to this, reminiscent of in Alabama and Arkansas throughout the Civil Rights Motion, when presidents deployed the Nationwide Guard towards the needs of a governor. Extra just lately, Trump mobilized the guard in Los Angeles and tried to do the identical in Chicago final 12 months, regardless of opposition from the governors of California and Illinois. Federal judges have additionally barred the Trump administration from deploying the guard in Portland.

If the Nationwide Guard troops that Walz readied are deployed in Minnesota, consultants mentioned and up to date examples present, their function can be largely auxiliary, engaged on issues like visitors management, logistics, transportation and safety.

To ensure that the federal government so as to add a power just like the navy police to any Nationwide Guard presence in Minneapolis, Taylor mentioned, they must in flip play an much more ancillary function. On this occasion, the place Walz’s purpose for the Nationwide Guard can be to guard residents, navy assist might work opposite to the Trump administration’s purpose to empower ICE to proceed immigration raids.

The Military’s navy police are educated for 2 major targets, Method and Taylor mentioned. The primary is to protect, transport and defend prisoners of warfare in fight. A secondary function is to function legislation enforcement officers for the enlisted personnel and to police U.S. troopers.

Navy police should not educated closely in constitutional legislation. Taylor mentioned the coaching he acquired when he joined the Air Power on Constitutional legislation, which protects folks from illegal searches and makes use of of power, was lower than 1 / 4 of what he acquired as a police academy cadet.

Even in a restricted function, Taylor mentioned, sending navy police to civilian communities ought to be a transfer the federal government makes solely in probably the most excessive of circumstances.

“In my private opinion, the state of affairs in Minneapolis hasn’t risen to the extent that will require active-duty navy involvement, and I don’t suppose it’ll get to that time,” Taylor mentioned.

By Thursday afternoon, after Vice President JD Vance attended a roundtable dialogue in Minneapolis with group leaders, the specter of navy involvement appeared to already be waning. Vance mentioned native police wanted to work with federal legislation enforcement to “decrease the chaos,” in response to CBS Information.

Daniel Brown, a police coverage and process skilled, mentioned on Thursday it could be arduous to say what impact the presence of any navy power would have on an already tense environment in Minnesota. The previous police chief, who additionally served within the Marines and as a Nationwide Guardsman, mentioned he hopes Minneapolis residents won’t ever have to seek out out.

“With out realizing what their roles can be and what the targets are, it’s actually a loaded query,” Brown mentioned, including that native and state legislation enforcement businesses already function by means of a community of agreements that enable them to name in different officers from close by cities and states to assist them if crucial. “Until the roles are clearly outlined, there can be challenges.”