WASHINGTON — The Defense Department has told 1,500 active-duty troops to prepare for a possible deployment to Minnesota, where President Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act as a response to protests there against the killing of a Minneapolis woman by a federal immigration officer.

Since threatening to invoke the little-used 1807 law, Trump has already appeared to back away from actually doing so, as Republican and Democratic lawmakers alike have called for restraint.

Even so, the Pentagon last week put troops with two infantry battalions with the Army’s 11th Airborne Division on alert in case they ended up being called up, two Defense officials said.

“The Department of War is always prepared to execute the orders of the commander in chief if called upon,” Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, said in an emailed statement, using the Trump administration’s preferred moniker for the department.

The Pentagon last week also quietly alerted 200 Texas National Guard troops to be ready to deploy to Minnesota in the event that Trump followed through with his threat. The Texas Guard soldiers have remained on standby since returning home from Chicago late last year.

But the deployment of troops from the 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska, would be a major escalation for Trump, who has already sent National Guard troops into a number of U.S. cities.

The use of military force on domestic soil in the United States is rare, and it is usually reserved only for the most extreme situations. Active-duty forces are barred from domestic law enforcement unless the president invokes the Insurrection Act, which allows for the use of federal troops on U.S. soil.

The order putting the troops on notice to deploy was reported earlier by ABC News.

On Friday, a day after issuing his Insurrection Act threat, Trump appeared to walk back his comments. “I don’t think I need it right now,” he told reporters while leaving the White House to spend the weekend in Florida.

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Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2024, urged Trump on Thursday to back off the heated rhetoric. “Let’s turn the temperature down,” the governor wrote on social media. “Stop this campaign of retribution.”

The Justice Department has opened an investigation into Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey of Minneapolis, an escalation in the state-federal battle over the conduct of immigration agents in the city.

Trump was talked out of invoking the Insurrection Act in 2020 following the protests over the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. At the time, his defense secretary, attorney general and chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff all advised him against sending active-duty troops into U.S. cities to battle local citizens.

But Trump has a much more compliant Pentagon in his second term, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has worked to amplify Trump’s directives and inclinations, rather than seek to restrain him.

One defense official said Sunday that the Pentagon was aware that Trump had appeared to back away from his threat, but also said that Hegseth wanted to be prepared.