The killing of Renée Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026 has ignited a crisis that progressive leaders created and now cannot control. What began as an enforcement action quickly exploded into street confrontations after the Department of Homeland Security surged federal agents into the Twin Cities, a deployment that included thousands of personnel and heavy-handed tactics that have only escalated tensions.
State officials have responded with lawsuits and warnings rather than clear, coordinated law-and-order measures, with Minnesota and Illinois suing the federal government to block the immigration enforcement surge and demanding limits on federal tactics. Those suits allege unconstitutional conduct, call for identification and body cameras, and seek to rein in an operation that local leaders say treats citizens like combatants.
Governor Tim Walz put the Minnesota National Guard on standby “should they be needed,” but his tepid posture and the chaotic back-and-forth between federal and local authorities have only emboldened agitators. While state leaders posture, federal officers report being targeted, and ordinary Minnesotans are caught between competing authorities who refuse to restore simple public safety.
Republican lawmakers and conservative voices have been blunt: if state officials move to obstruct federal law enforcement, the Insurrection Act is a constitutional tool the president can use to protect federal officers and enforce the law. Some members of Congress even demanded that President Trump arrest Governor Walz if he attempted to use the Guard to oppose federal action — a dramatic sign that patience in GOP ranks is gone.
President Trump himself has ratcheted up pressure, promising “reckoning and retribution” in posts and public statements while defending federal agents and framing the unrest as the predictable result of decades of left-wing softness on crime and open-border policies. That rhetoric resonates with millions of Americans who are tired of being told to accept disorder as the price of progressivism.
Enough talk of nuance and investigations while shop windows get smashed and ordinary citizens fear walking their neighborhoods. If the state of Minnesota will not act to secure its streets and instead tries to block federal law enforcement, the president has both a legal mechanism and a patriotic duty to deploy it — to reassert the rule of law, protect federal officers, and send a clear deterrent message to the radical fringe.
Democratic leaders and the sympathetic national press will howl, but their outrage is selective and predictable: when they own the chaos they created, they scream about federal overreach; when conservatives warn of consequences, they call it authoritarianism. The choice is simple for principled patriots who value order over chaos — decisive action now will save lives and preserve the fabric of communities that the left has been content to sacrifice for ideology.
President Trump should not wait for the situation to metastasize into worse violence out of fear of media tantrums or leftist lawsuits. The moment for leadership is now: use the tools of the Constitution, restore security, and let the political consequences fall where they may — being a president means protecting the nation, even when the swamp and the mobs scream the loudest.
