"We Will Be Closed: ICE Out of Minnesota"

The murder of an ICE raid observer, kidnappings, and manifold assaults on immigrant workers might be yet another catalyst. In the history of mass uprisings, a series of galvanizing events lit the fuse of popular discontent, igniting revolts from below.

​“Any new word on prospects for a real general strike in Minneapolis?” the historian Nelson Lichtenstein wrote to me recently. ​“All the ingredients are there, unless [Governor Tim] Walz and other politicians throw a wet blanket on it because they fear Trump will put the Insurrection Act into effect.”

The beating heart of a fighting labor movement is in Minnesota. Workers are fighting back, and a new horizon of possibility has opened up, seizing on the momentum of mass protests combined with the durable institutional power of labor. Courageous everyday people taking to the streets, bold leadership in labor, and durable civic institutions have produced a resistance bloc. This bloc has brought together a range of organizations working together, while also pursuing different tactics as part of a shared strategy of loosening the grip of the billionaires and their authoritarian government.

Communications Workers of America President Local 7250 Kieran Knutson told me that experiences in Minnesota’s working-class neighborhoods were ​“seeping into the organized working class.” That has moved even the most stolid of organizations into a fighting posture. Of course, there are powerful organizations with histories of struggle like Service Employees Local 26 that are building on past organizing victories and coalition building, but more than the usual suspects are stepping up to meet the moment.

This much we know: Minnesota is not only under attack; it’s under a federal occupation by murderous thugs. Weeks ago, ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed poet and mother of three Renee Nicole Good in Minnesota while she and her wife were observing federal agents swarming her neighborhood. ​“We had whistles,” Rebecca Good said in a statement. ​“They had guns.”

Good’s murder comes after over thirty deaths of immigrants in ICE custody in 2025, which is on pace to be surpassed in 2026. It also comes as President Trump’s regime has ramped up racist attacks targeting the Somali and Latino community in Minneapolis.

And the people have had enough. They’ve leaned on their organizations in the workplace and in their neighborhoods to organize an end to the terror. Now unions and community organizations are calling for a statewide ​“pause to economic activity” on January 23 to disrupt business as usual.

It’s the closest we have come in the U.S. in almost a century to a coordinated work stoppage across different sectors. No unions have yet said they’ve voted to strike, but the potential for disruption is real.

Read more about what’s happening in my Labor Notes story, ​“Will ICE Ignite a Mass Strike in Minnesota?” Here are resources for how to support and actions you can take.