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Over 100,000 protest against ICE occupation in Minneapolis The protesters’ demands include that ICE leave Minnesota, that the ICE officer who killed Good be legally held accountable, an end to additional federal funding for ICE, and for the agency to be investigated for human rights and constitutional violations. Hundreds of local businesses in Minnesota announced closures in solidarity. Thousands of people took the day off from their jobs to join the action, while others participated by not shopping on Friday. The Minneapolis city council endorsed the day of action and the general strike. The state’s cultural institutions – including the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Science Museum of Minnesota and the Minnesota Children’s Museum – closed on Friday as well. During a protest at the Minneapolis-St Paul airport on Friday morning, hundreds of clergy members called for an end to the ICE surge and urged airline companies to join them in opposing ICE in the state. Video of the action showed hundreds of people walking outside the airport in sub-zero temperatures, singing songs and praying together. Deportation flights go in and out of the airport daily. On Friday afternoon, thousands clad in winter gear and carrying signs filled the streets of downtown Minneapolis to march in subzero temperatures, ending in a rally inside the Target Center, an arena downtown. “We are going to be having dangerously cold weather on Friday – -10F with wind chills. Like the high is going to be -10F with wind chills of up to -20F,” Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minnesota Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, had told the Guardian earlier. “We are a northern state, and we are built for the cold, and we are going to show up, but folks are going to need to pay attention to not just the march, but what people are doing, the individual stories of solidarity that people are going to be doing.” 
The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s federation of more than 1,000 affiliated local unions, endorsed the day of action, along with dozens of local labor unions. “I think what generated the idea for this action came out of the need to figure out what we can meaningfully do to stop it,” Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America (CWA) Local 7250 in Minneapolis, told the Guardian last week. “The government in the state of Minnesota has not offered any path towards stopping these attacks, this violence.” A childcare worker in Minneapolis, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation toward the immigrant families they serve, said they were shutting down for the day after consulting and receiving immense support from the families of the children they care for. “We had time to ask the families that we serve if they would be on board with shutting down and we got a hugely positive response,” they said. “We serve families that are on childcare assistance, families that pay out of pocket. So they were all in agreement, even ones that have been trying to go to work, even during this time where they were fearful of being out of their houses. So it was really the families. They all stood up for it, too.” At the University of Minnesota campuses in Minneapolis, St Paul, and Duluth, labor unions representing student workers and staff have called for the university system to shut down on Friday to allow students and workers to participate in the day of action. The University of Minnesota graduate labor union said ICE’s operations have had an impact on student workers since the beginning of the Trump administration. In early 2025, at least three international students at the University of Minnesota were arrested and detained by ICE, despite an immigration judge ordering their release. “It’s really concerning to us that the university is remaining neutral in a time when immigrant communities and international students are literally under attack,” said Abaki Beck, president of the University of Minnesota graduate labor union. “One of the other things we’re pushing for on campus specifically is increased support for immigrant workers and international students.” A spokesperson for the University of Minnesota cited a guidance memo from university leadership in response to the day of action. They said in a statement: “The University of Minnesota fully supports the rights of faculty, staff, and students to engage in lawful civic expression. We also must ensure continuity of operations and meet our responsibilities to students and the university community.” The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) claimed to have made 3,000 arrests in Minnesota over the past six weeks. The US army put 1,500 soldiers on standby for possible deployment to Minnesota, as 3,000 immigration officers have been dispatched to the state by the Trump administration. “This is beyond insane. Why would these labor bosses not want these public safety threats out of their communities?” a DHS spokesperson said in an email in response to the economic blackout. “These are the criminals these labor bosses are trying to protect,” the spokesperson added, citing 23 uncaptioned photos of claimed undocumented immigrants with criminal records who have been arrested by ICE. Nationwide, immigrants with no criminal record continue to make up the largest group in US immigration detention, which is at record levels. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jan/23/minnesota-economic-blackout-ice-protests ‘We have to stand together’: Minnesota economic blackout organizers push to take demonstrations nationwide Minnesotans urged not to work, shop or go to school as part of protests against ICE and the death of Renee Nicole Good Michael Sainato (The Guardian) 22 January 2026 18.00 GMT One of the largest labor unions in the US is pushing to expand Friday’s economic blackout over the surge of federal immigration agents in Minnesota. Organizers are urging Minnesotans not to work, shop or go to school tomorrow, as part of demonstrations against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in the region, and the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good. They are now planning actions beyond the state, and nationwide. There are planned actions in cities across the US – from Orlando, Florida, Columbus, Ohio, and Phoenix, Arizona, to Seattle, Washington, Los Angeles, California, and New York City – in solidarity with the people of Minnesota. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which represents nearly 2 million service and healthcare workers across the US, is leading calls for nationwide participation. “Martin Luther King wrote to Cesar Chavez during the Great Boycott and said our separate struggles are really one struggle,” David Huerta, president of SEIU-United Service Workers West (USWW) and SEIU California, said on Sunday on Politics Nation with the Rev Al Sharpton on MS Now. “Right now, more than any time ever, we see our civil rights, workers’ rights, and immigrants’ rights [...] in alignment with one another.” . He added: “When we look at Minneapolis – the violence, the cruelty that’s being brought by this federal government against working people – it is now more than ever that we have to stand together, regardless of our differences.” Jim Badger-Aguilar, a public employee at the Massachusetts Commission for the blind, and SEIU Local 509 member, is due to take part in a blackout event in Boston on Friday. “The behavior of ICE has gone well beyond, I think, what even some of the worst expectations many of us had of what would happen with this ramped-up racist, anti immigrant policies of the Trump administration,” he said. “I’ve been blind since birth, and I work for a blindness agency in Massachusetts. I’m a public sector worker,” added Badger-Aguilar. “The billions and billions of dollars that are going to ICE are at the cost of public services and of services for people with disabilities, people who are homeless, people who are poor, other working people, and the people who work alongside us, who serve some of the most vulnerable communities – in Massachusetts, and around the country.” Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minnesota Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, described the ICE operations in Minnesota as a “crisis” for thousands of workers, due to the risks they face of being targeted while trying to go to work to put food on the table for their families. “This is a crisis for all of our workers,” she said. “This is a crisis for our local economy, and we’re doing everything we can with our employers to keep our workplaces safe. Our communities and our democracy is under attack when you can’t even have the freedom to move to go to work. “We’re just encouraging everybody in Minnesota, and I understand now it’s gotten national and international traction, to stand in solidarity on the 23rd that what is happening here is unconstitutional and is dangerous.” “I stand before you with so many clergy, not just here, but across this great state, who are calling for ICE to leave,” said JaNaé Bates Imari, a minister and co-executive director of the multi-faith non-profit Isaiah, in a press conference with several congregation leaders across different religions. “On Friday, we are asking every single faith community to open your doors for people to have lament, to have prayer, to take moral and faithful action together, to take time to reflect on what is going on because it is absolutely not normal, and to call on our folks all around us.” Dozens of local small businesses in the Minneapolis area, from bars to restaurants and bakeries, have announced plans to close. A spokesperson for the US Department of Homeland Security said: “This is beyond insane. Why would these labor bosses not want these public safety threats out of their communities?” They also provided 23 uncaptioned photos of “criminals” they accused labor unions of “trying to protect” by staging the blackout. Under the Trump administration, thousands of people targeted by ICE have no criminal record, and numerous US citizens have also been detained. In 2025, Trump also issued more than 1,500 pardons of individuals convicted of crimes, including US Capitol insurrectionists and wealthy campaign donors. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jan/22/minnesota-economic-blackout-ice Back |
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