‘Now Is the Time’: Minnesota Calls for General Strike to Drive Out ICE

The movement against ICE has continued to surge in Minneapolis and across the United States in the wake of the killing of Renee Good.

On Jan. 13, a coalition of faith leaders, union presidents, business owners and community figures in Minneapolis called on “every worker in Minnesota to refuse to show up to work” and “every single Minnesotan to not spend a dime” on Jan. 23 to demand an end to the “violence and horror” that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has unleashed on the community and the agency’s complete removal from the state.

“We are going to leverage our economic power, our labor, our prayer for one another,” said JaNaé Bates, co-executive director of Isaiah MN, a multiracial interfaith community organizing network.

“We are not going to shop, we are not going to work, we are not going to school on Friday, January 23.” 

Dozens of labor unions, faith groups, businesses and community organizations across the state are backing the call, with many more joining by the hour. Bates added, “Some people, they call that a strike. For many of us, we say this is our right to refusal until something changes.”

Instead of participating in the economy, the organizers are calling on people to use the day to be conscious of the community. Faith groups will be fasting and praying. And at 2 p.m. in downtown Minneapolis, organizers hope millions will gather for a mass march.

“Now is the time,” said the minister. “If you ever wondered for yourself, ‘When is the time that we do something different? When is the time that we stand up and say that this has to change? That this needs to end?’ The time is now.”

Violence in Minnesota backed by Nazi rhetoric in Washington

Speakers at the press conference announcing the strike expressed outrage at the ICE killing of Good, whose “whistleblowing was returned by bullets.” They also described the escalating violence by ICE agents against the community in recent days. According to videos from Minnesota circulating on social media, ICE is raiding homes, separating families, dragging employees from their workplaces, pepper spraying people, assaulting high school students and staff, shooting activists with flashbangs and more.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has continued to defend the ICE operations with far-right rhetoric. Senior U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino recently called Minnesotans who oppose ICE “weak-minded”, echoing Nazi-era language about degeneracy and social cleansing. During a press conference on Jan. 12, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem had the line “One of ours, all of yours” posted on her podium, a shocking moment given that the slogan is directly linked to Nazi collective punishment doctrine. The line comes from an atrocity known as the Lidice Massacre. After one Nazi soldier was killed in a Czech village, the Nazis massacred 170 men and boys of that village, deported 200 women and killed 82 children in gas chambers.

On the morning of Jan. 13, in a post on his Truth Social platform, President Trump again claimed that there are thousands of violent criminals in Minnesota that ICE is removing.

Responding to Trump, Bates declared that Minnesotans do want to remove the criminals: “Those thousands of people committing crimes in the state are the ICE officers! Who have been ramming their cars into our people, who have been stealing our people, kidnapping folks, who have been beating folks up and dropping them off in random locations.”

“The beauty about Minnesotans is that we have stood up for each other. We have come together,” she said. The minister was flanked by business owners, faith leaders and community figures who echoed the demand for ICE to leave Minnesota and any other state in which it is operating.

“Prayer is not a passive activity”

James Earl Johnson, pastor at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul, said Jan. 23 will be a day to reflect on the truth and the call from God to love our neighbors.

“We will pray for the power we have as people of faith to stop this madness, and for ICE to leave Minnesota and any other state where their actions are abusing the children of God.”

Pastor Brian Herron of Zion Baptist Church described the ICE presence in Minneapolis as “spiritual warfare”.

“Darkness can’t drive out darkness, right? Only light can break darkness. And we choose to be light today. We choose to speak peace and not hate. We choose unity and not division. And so we will collectively come together on the 23rd.”

Bates underlined the duty of faith leaders and congregations in this moment to use fasting and prayer to mobilize the community against the militarized federal forces in the twin cities.

“Prayer is not a passive activity. It is one that is of action. It is one about transformation. It is one where we get to transform ourselves and this world.”

She also highlighted that faith communities are not in this fight alone, listing dozens of unions, businesses and interfaith organizations that have already joined the “Day of Truth and Freedom.”

Day of Truth and Freedom

Amid the “lies” by the Trump administration framing Good as a “domestic terrorist,” leaders say truth is essential at this moment.

“The truth is … that life is sacred,” said Bates. “In no way, shape or form should we dismiss someone being killed. In no way, shape or form should we give excuses to people being harmed every day, right? That is the truth.”

She added: “We need to take a real pause, a real time to step away and say: You know what? Here is actually what is happening.”

Bates made the point that to live in fear, surrounded by violence, is not freedom.

“Freedom is not just the freedom from constraints. It is the freedom to have safety. It is the freedom to have joy. It’s the freedom to be able to thrive. That is why we are choosing this day of freedom and truth.”

Community leaders reiterated the call for every Minnesotan who loves “this notion of truth and freedom”, to refuse to work, shop or go to school on Jan. 23.

Organizers asked people to spend the next 10 days before the day of action talking to businesses, small and large, and ask them what their plan is for the day, and how they are standing up to demand that ICE leave Minnesota. 

This thing called hope

“I am a woman of faith. And there’s this thing we talk about called hope,” Bates said when asked if the strike day will work to drive ICE out.

“I believe this is going to rock this state in the most beautiful and glorious of ways. It is going to open our eyes to what is possible,” the minister said.

“For too long we have been told nothing is possible. Bow down, obey and do whatever it is that somebody at the top says to do. But we know that that is a lie from the pit of hell. And let me tell y’all this, there is so much that is able to be accomplished when we come together and say ‘no more’ to what is awful and ‘yes’ to what is possible.”