Insurrection Act not off the table for LA protests, Trump says

President Donald Trump said he won’t rule out invoking the Insurrection Act as violent protests against federal immigration officers continue in Los Angeles for a third day. 

National Guard troops clashed with protesters Sunday, firing tear gas at crowds as protesters moved onto the freeways surrounding downtown and blocked traffic. Police said two LAPD officers were injured after they were hit by motorcyclists who tried to breach a skirmish line. 

Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard troops to California after confrontations between federal immigration officers and protesters who tried to stop them from carrying out immigration sweeps. 

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What is the Insurrection Act? 

The backstory:

The Insurrection Act allows presidents to call on reserve or active-duty military units to respond to unrest in the states, an authority that is not reviewable by the courts. One of its few guardrails requires the president to request that the participants disperse.

ICE officers and national guards confront with protesters outside of the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles, California on June 8, 2025 amid protests over immigration raids. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Congress passed the act in 1792, just four years after the Constitution was ratified. Joseph Nunn, a national security expert with the Brennan Center for Justice, told The Associated Press it’s an amalgamation of different statutes enacted between then and the 1870s, a time when there was little in the way of local law enforcement.

"It is a law that in many ways was created for a country that doesn’t exist anymore," he added.

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It also is one of the most substantial exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits using the military for law enforcement purposes.

Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act? 

What they're saying:

Speaking to reporters Sunday, Trump did not rule out invoking the Insurrection Act in response to the Los Angeles ICE protests. 

"Depends on whether or not there’s an insurrection," Trump said. "We’re not going to let them get away with it. We’re going to have troops everywhere, we’re not going to let this happen to our country. We’re not going to let our country be torn apart."

Trump on protests: Won't let country be 'torn apart'

President Trump spoke with reporters before boarding Air Force One in New Jersey on Sunday, where he called for "law and order" amid ongoing anti-ICE protests in Los Angeles.

Trump said he did not believe the protests constituted an insurrection as of Sunday afternoon, but he said, "you have violent people, and we’re not going to let them get away with that."

Past use of the Insurrection Act

Dig deeper:

Presidents have issued a total of 40 proclamations invoking the law, some of those done multiple times for the same crisis, Nunn said. Lyndon Johnson invoked it three times — in Baltimore, Chicago and Washington — in response to the unrest in cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

During the Civil Rights era, Presidents Johnson, John F. Kennedy and Dwight Eisenhower used the law to protect activists and students desegregating schools. Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to protect Black students integrating Central High School after that state’s governor activated the National Guard to keep the students out.

George H.W. Bush was the last president to use the Insurrection Act, a response to riots in Los Angeles in 1992 after the acquittal of the white police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King in an incident that was videotaped.