Pentagon Tells Alaska Troops to Prepare for Possible Deployment to Minnesota Protests

The Pentagon has ordered about 1,500 active-duty soldiers in Alaska to prepare for possible deployment to Minnesota, as large and increasingly volatile protests continue against federal immigration raids in the Minneapolis–St Paul area, US media have reported.

Two US officials told Reuters on Sunday that two infantry battalions from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska, have received prepare-to-deploy orders. The unit, which specialises in operating in extreme cold, could be sent to the Twin Cities, where protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations have persisted despite freezing winter conditions.

In a statement emailed to the Associated Press, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell did not deny that the orders had been issued, saying only that the military “is always prepared to execute the orders of the Commander-in-Chief if called upon.”

ABC News first reported the deployment preparations.

The move comes as Minneapolis and St Paul remain on edge following weeks of demonstrations sparked by aggressive ICE raids and the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old Minneapolis resident and mother, earlier this month. Nearly 3,000 federal ICE agents have been deployed to the city, according to local officials, fuelling anger over the scale and tactics of the operation.

Violence and injuries have mounted as the raids continue. ICE said on Sunday that a man arrested in Minneapolis died while in federal custody. Victor Manuel Diaz, a 36-year-old Nicaraguan national, died at Camp East Montana detention facility in El Paso, Texas, on Sunday afternoon, 12 days after his arrest.

The Department of Homeland Security also confirmed that a federal officer shot a Venezuelan man in the leg during an immigration operation on Wednesday.

Local emergency services have reported injuries among bystanders as well. The Minneapolis Fire Department said a six-month-old baby and a child were hospitalised after being exposed to tear gas deployed by ICE agents, according to Minnesota Public Radio.

ICE director Todd M Lyons said on Wednesday that federal agents have arrested 2,500 people since the operation in Minnesota began.

Human rights organisations and legal observers have raised alarms about the growing pressure on the US immigration detention system, citing overcrowding, lack of medical care, and conditions on deportation flights. Those concerns intensified after hundreds of Venezuelan men were deported in March 2025 to El Salvador’s Centre for the Confinement of Terrorism, a maximum-security prison known as CECOT.

An investigation into the facility, which was reportedly delayed from airing on CBS News’s 60 Minutes last month amid internal controversy, was broadcast on Sunday night.