By Theresa Powers, a Special Education Teacher in Chicago and a delegate in the Chicago Teachers Union. Writing in personal capacity.
Tens of thousands of residents of Minnesota are signing on to a day of action along with unions, community organizations, faith leaders, and small businesses calling for a statewide day of “no work, no school, and no shopping” on Friday, January 23. Solidarity across the country for this call is growing rapidly with several actions already scheduled. Meanwhile, the Trump administration has announced that 1,500 U.S. Marines in Alaska are in a state of readiness to intervene and plans to ramp up federal ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents in their state. In Minneapolis, the call for a day of action comes as a direct response to the events of January 7th, a turning point for the mounting resistance movement when Renee Nicole Good, poet and mother of three, was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathan Ross. Good and her wife were peacefully observing federal agents invading their neighborhood. This event has sparked vigils and protests across the country.
Since September, federal immigration officers have shot 11 people as the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has ramped up deportation operations around the country. In the majority of the shootings, officers fired into cars while ICE officers are regularly captured on video clashing with immigrants as well as citizens who protest the arrests. These shootings “are not one-offs,” said Jim Bueermann, the former police chief in California, who now runs a research group. “This is clearly developing into a pattern and practice of how they deal with people in the enforcement of immigration laws, and to me that’s the most alarming thing we’re seeing.”
Since taking office in January of last year, the Trump regime has deployed thousands of agents of ICE and CBP (Customs and Border Patrol) in a brutal campaign of kidnapping people from their homes and jobs across the U.S., claiming they are “enforcing immigration” and customs laws. In reality, the Trump big business administration has launched a public campaign to terrorize immigrants and minority communities. This has led to multiple operations across the country, brutalizing residents, shooting teargas into communities, and even pulling families out of their homes overnight. National guard and army troops have been sent in by Trump to support these on the ground operations, tasked with “protecting” ICE and CBP agents from protesters and community members who oppose the kidnapping and brutalizing of neighbors, friends, and coworkers. The local police forces are also assisting in this, offering protection to ICE and CBP as they carry out kidnappings and disappearances.
The entire operation so far has kidnapped and detained over 73,000 individuals who are being held in facilities across the country facing deportation, the highest level recorded by DHS and an 84% increase from the same time in 2025, when its detention population hovered below 40,000. What is happening in the Twin Cities (Minneapolis & Saint Paul) seems to be so far the most militarized and aggressive operation yet.
The nationwide response to this militarized campaign of terror of the Trump regime has been the emergence of several rapid response networks – neighbors’ and local committees coming together to warn, protect, and block raids from happening at all. As Trump sends ICE to immigrant neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces, people are organizing ICE-watch training, whistle-packing events, school patrols, mutual aid, and more, including at times mass resistance to the kidnappings. In many instances unions and community groups are involved. In Chicago, public school educators with help from the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) have organized Sanctuary Teams to protect and defend students and staff from ICE. These teams facilitate training for parents and the community, safety plans at schools, connecting with families who may be scared to send their children to school, safe passage patrols, and mutual aid drives. CTU also won language in the contract that does not allow for ICE to come inside school buildings without a judicial warrant. In New York, the new left wing mayor Zohran Mamdani has spoken openly against the terror tactics of the Trump regime and the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are training thousands of rapid response local coordinators for resistance against immigration raids by ICE.
As communities come together to protect and defend our neighbors and democratic rights, the natural next step is calling for mass action. In Minnesota, this sparked a campaign of unions, community groups, and tens of thousands of individuals to sign on to a statewide call under the banner of “ICE Out of MN: Day of Truth and Freedom,” for ICE to leave the state, for the officer who killed Good to be held legally accountable, for no additional federal funding for ICE, and for businesses to sever any economic ties with the federal immigration agency. The list of unions endorsing the call is growing but so far includes Service Employees Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, Communications Workers Local 7250, the St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28, Minneapolis Federation of Educators (AFT Local 59), the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Local 13, Graduate Labor Union, United Electrical Workers Local 1105 at the University of Minnesota, the Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, the Committee of Interns and Residents (SEIU), and the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. Other endorsers include Faith in Minnesota, Tending the Soil, United Renters for Justice, Unidos Minnesota, Communities Against Police Brutality, Indivisible Twin Cities, Women’s March Minnesota, the worker center Centro de Trabajadores Unidos en la Lucha, and Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee. In all, 90 organizations, big and small, have endorsed the call, with young people from high schools and universities expecting to join in large numbers. If the momentum continues and if there is a clear lead to escalate in the face of threats by the Trump administration, the situation can escalate rapidly into a political general strike.
Although unions have endorsed the calls for Minnesotans to refuse work, school, and shopping on January 23rd, no union has officially agreed to strike yet. Across the country, solidarity rallies are being called for January 23rd in support of this day of action to get ICE out of our cities. On the heels of mass anti-Trump protests and rallies across the country for “No Kings Day” which attracted millions, the situation in Minnesota has the potential to escalate into something larger, beyond the Democratic party’s “wait for the mid-term elections” policy and spreading of mass organized resistance across the country. It is clear that the Trump administration will not retreat but plans to escalate in Minneapolis including threats to declare “a state of emergency” so that they can deploy the U.S. military to implement the vicious racist attacks against immigrants and democratic rights.
The local unions, self-organizing networks and community organizations that so far have been involved in the resistance should prepare to shut down the entire state of Minnesota, and spread the call for mass resistance to challenge the Trump reactionary regime across the country.
The demands for democratic rights and defending immigrants against ICE should be linked with demands against cuts in healthcare and education, calls to tax the rich and big business to fully fund services, to organize mass resistance to the Trump regime and his capitalist oligarchs’ administration which continues to cause enormous suffering and fear in the US and across the globe.
A coalition of unions in “May Day Strong” are looking towards May Day 2026 as a potential day of nationwide action to oppose the vicious attacks on democratic rights, brutality and austerity of the Trump administration. A nationwide day of action, or a one-day general strike, would be a huge step forward for the movement of resistance against Trump and the billionaires.
