“No work, no school, no shopping”: Minnesotans strike statewide against ICE despite arctic weather
Protesters across Minnesota left work and skipped school to take part in a statewide strike against the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the state, even as temperatures plunged to near below 20 degrees.
The protests, called “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom,” feature faith leaders, labor unions, and other civic leaders, along with thousands of protesters, calling for ICE to leave the state and an investigation into the killing of Renee Nicole Good. Over 200 businesses statewide have closed for the day, with organizers expecting nearly 700 to shut down for their “economic blackout.”
“We will walk in below zero degrees in one of the coldest days in Minnesota,” Emilia González Avalos with UNIDOS Minnesota, an organizing group for the event, told CNN. “We’re asking people to march,” said González. “We’re asking people boycott today. We’re asking people to get trained as legal observers.”
A mile-long march in Minneapolis is expected to start at 2 p.m. CST and will go to the Target Center, where an indoor rally will continue. Already, though, protesters are out in force across the state.
Protesters took to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport on Friday morning, chanting anti-ICE slogans and waving signs calling for justice for Good.
Activists are at the Minneapolis St Paul Airport as part of the general strike against ICE operations. pic.twitter.com/nE7VWVbiQM
— Clint Combs (@Combs0294) January 23, 2026
Numerous protesters lined the perimeter of an ICE facility at Fort Snelling in St. Paul, where the temperature was reported to be well below 20 degrees with the wind chill. Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was present at the protests, telling Salon that ICE’s tactics have not been “about immigration,” but “intimidation.”
“ICE is using more and more abusive tactics to try to provoke communities to erupt, so that the president can use more force and militarize American cities,” Weingarten told Salon. “We embrace our neighbors, and we fight for our fundamental freedoms.”
“Stop and kidnapping and murdering our people,” one protester told JT Cestkowski, a reporter for Status Coup News. “We’re falling under a fascist regime very quickly, this is how it started in 1930s Germany.”
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Another protester referred to ICE officers as “criminal thugs.”
All these people that ICE and the Trump admin are f**king over, every single one of those people is a story, and they’ve had their story interrupted,” he told Cestkowski.
A spokesperson from the Department of Homeland Security called the protests “beyond insane.”
“Why would these labor bosses not want these public safety threats out of their communities?” the spokesperson told The Guardian. “These are the criminals these labor bosses are trying to protect,” they added.
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