By Mike Bebernes

 

WASHINGTON, 09 Oct. - (ANA) - President Trump on Monday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to obtain the legal authority to deploy troops into American cities led by Democrats.. The act, which was signed into law more than 200 years ago, grants presidents the power to use the military to quash rebellions on U.S. soil.

 

“I’d do it if it was necessary. So far it hasn’t been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday.

 

The president has vowed to send federal troops into Portland, Ore., and Chicago in order to confront what he has described as the “NEVER-ENDING DISASTER” within those cities.

 

Monday’s comments about invoking the Insurrection Act came after a federal court blocked the Trump administration from sending National Guard troops into Portland. Democratic officials in Chicago and the state of Illinois have filed a similar lawsuit to stop federal troops from being deployed there.

 

“The Trump administration is following a playbook: Cause chaos, create fear and confusion, make it seem like peaceful protesters are a mob by firing gas pellets and tear gas canisters at them," Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Monday. “Why? To create the pretext for invoking the Insurrection Act so that he can send military troops to our city. He wants to justify and normalize the presence of armed soldiers under his direct command.”

 

This isn't the first time that Trump has openly considered invoking the act. He discussed using it to deal with anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles in June. He previously described it as “one of the tools available” for handling widespread racial justice marches in the summer of 2020.

 

 

 

 

In the U.S., it is generally illegal for the government to use the military to enforce domestic law. The Insurrection Act allows presidents to get around those restrictions under certain circumstances.

 

Although it was originally written to counter the classic definition of an insurrection — meaning an explicit and violent uprising against the U.S. government — it has been used in the past to deal with other types of unrest. The last time it was invoked was in 1992, when then-President George H.W. Bush authorized the National Guard to help contain mass riots in Los Angeles following the Rodney King verdict.

 

The Insurrection Act is almost always invoked at the request of governors, but there have been a few instances where it’s been used against the wishes of local officials. For example, it was invoked three times between 1957 and 1963 in order to force schools in the South to integrate their public schools in defiance of governors who wanted to keep them segregated.

 

 

 

 

The president wants to send federal troops to Democrat-led cities, but the legal reasoning he’s been relying on to do it has come up short repeatedly in the courts. He was able to deploy the National Guard to Washington, D.C., where he has more authority because of the city’s unique position as the nation’s capital. But he has faced roadblocks when trying to do the same thing in other parts of the country.

 

The Insurrection Act could give him a way to get around those legal barriers. While there have been regular protests and some scattered violence in Portland and Chicago, the current situation in those cities is not reflective of the kind of widespread unrest or rebellion seen in past uses of the act. However, the law itself appears to give the president significant leeway to interpret what qualifies as an insurrection based on the act’s language.

 

The most important passage states that the act can be invoked “whenever the President considers” that unlawful activities in a state “make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States.” The president and his top surrogates have begun using the word "insurrection" regularly to describe what’s happening in blue cities.

 

“If you take a look at what’s been going on in Portland, it’s been going on for a long time, and that’s insurrection. I mean, that’s pure insurrection,” Trump said on Monday.

 

The president's deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, has referred to court orders blocking the deployment of troops as a “legal insurrection.”

 

Whether that is enough to give Trump the footing to invoke the Insurrection Act would be up to the courts to decide if he follows through on his threat. It’s also unclear if a president’s declaration of an insurrection can even be challenged, constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera.

 

Trump’s potential use of the Insurrection Act would be consistent with his reliance on other types of declarations, specifically emergencies, to get around legal barriers that would otherwise prevent him from doing what he wants. He declared an economic emergency to give himself the power to impose widespread tariffs on imported goods. His declaration of an emergency at the southern border served as the legal justification of his sweeping immigration crackdown. He also used an energy emergency declaration to spur more fossil fuel production on federal lands.   - (ANA) -

 

AB/ANA/10 October 2025  - - -