Omar Says Trump Plot to Invoke Insurrection Act an ‘Unhinged Act of Authoritarianism’

President Donald Trump was nonchalant in his response to a question on Tuesday about the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act, which authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the country to suppress rebellion, violence, or enforce the law, but Congresswoman Ilhan Omar was clear in her warning about the move that Trump suggested could be coming.

"Invoking the Insurrection Act in his manufactured war on American cities is both illegal and unconstitutional," said Omar on social media. "Another unhinged act of authoritarianism."

When asked in the Oval Office about invoking the Insurrection Act, which was last used in 1992 to quell unrest in Los Angeles after four police officers were acquitted of beating Black motorist Rodney King, Trump said that "it's been invoked before, as you know," before repeating the claim that "there's lots of crime in Chicago."

As Common Dreams reported in August, crime in all of the cities Trump has threatened to deploy federal agents and troops to has been falling—contrary to his vague repeated claims that conditions are “bad, very bad" in the nation's largest and most diverse cities.

Chicago—a longtime target of the president—has seen fewer homicides this year than any year in the past decade, and reported a 30% decline in shootings and homicides in 2024. Violent crime in the city is down 25% from 2019—one of the largest declines among large cities.

But "Operation Midway Blitz," Trump's deployment of hundreds of armed federal immigration agents to the city, has brought what Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker called "chaos" to the city where residents have held nonviolent protests against the anti-immigration raids and detentions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Since the operation began on September 9, ICE and other immigration agents have fatally shot an undocumented immigrant, Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, during a traffic stop; slammed congressional candidate Kat Abughazaleh to the ground at a protest; attacked a priest and a journalist with pepper balls; pointed a gun directly at a civilian who was filming them; and imposed other violence on communities.

Pritzker said on Monday that he believes the president is intentionally causing "fear and confusion" on the streets of Chicago—as well as other cities such as Portland, Oregon—to create the appearance of chaos that's being fueled not by armed, masked federal agents, but by the communities there, and that must be stamped out by an even larger show of force.

Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich did not mince words in a Substack article on Monday about what he believes the president is planning.

"The direction we’re going is either martial law or civil war," said Reich. "I don’t want to unduly alarm you, but you need to be aware of this imminent danger. It’s unfolding very rapidly."

This week, Trump intensified federal forces' presence in Chicago and Portland by deploying not only the Illinois National Guard but also 400 members of the Texas National Guard to the two cities, the latter of which the president has described as "war-ravaged" due to protests that have been held outside an ICE facility in recent months. A federal judge found no veracity to the claim last weekend when she barred the administration from deploying to Oregon National Guard to Portland.

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, however, embraced the president's claim that the National Guard needed to protect federal agents to the public, telling Pritzker in a social media post, "You can either fully enforce protection for federal employees or get out of the way and let Texas Guard do it."

Reich wrote that "Americans from so-called 'red' states, with the backing of their Republican governors and legislatures, are on the brink of using lethal force against Americans in so-called 'blue' states, whose Democratic governors and legislatures strongly oppose the moves."

He added that several steps toward a wider deployment of military forces via the Insurrection Act have already been taken, when Trump deployed ICE to cities, provoked demonstrations with their presence, and exaggerated "the scale and severity" of the protests.

Reich wrote:

The third step is for Trump and Hegseth to deploy federalized National Guard troops to control the demonstrators, an act that’s already enflaming the public and provoking some actual violence.

Until Trump’s announcement that he was sending troops into Portland, protests rarely numbered more than two dozen people. Since his announcement, clashes have become more violent.

The fourth step will be for Trump and Hegseth to invoke the Insurrection Act.

He said as much today. The Insurrection Act empowers a president to deploy the US military and to federalize the National Guard units of the individual states to suppress civil disorder, insurrection, or armed rebellion against the federal government of the United States.

Reich expressed hope that federal courts including the Supreme Court will stop Trump's plan to deploy the military in US cities, which the president also teased in his speech in Quantico, Virginia on September 30, when he told the nation's top generals and admirals that the country is "under invasion from within" and said cities should be used as "training grounds" to target domestic "enemies."

"I hope we don’t come near to this," said Reich. "But I believe it is Trump’s plan... and they are implementing it as quickly as they can."

The ACLU last week called for "more concrete protections" at the state and local level as the invocation of the Insurrection Act appears increasingly imminent.

"States and cities should move to limit or withdraw from partnerships with the Trump administration that are being used to terrify and attack our neighbors and loved ones, like ICE’s expanding 287(g) program," wrote Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the group's national political advocacy division.

"Our schools, healthcare facilities, libraries, and shelters should establish protocols to limit law enforcement access without a warrant so that they are safer for our community members to visit," she added. "Our state and local governments should invest in proven public safety strategies and reject the administration’s attempt to redeploy the military as a police force in America’s streets."

"While much of the formal power to stop these deployments lies in the hands of local, state, and federal officials, we are not powerless—and it’s imperative that we keep speaking out," Shah added. "The Trump administration is relying on people being too scared to resist its cruel and unlawful measures. But the deployments in Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, and Memphis have shown us that we are stronger together."