Nationwide Strikes, Protests Against ICE This Weekend
Organizers nationwide are calling for a “no work, no school, no shopping” economic blackout on Friday, along with a series of “ICE Out” protests throughout the weekend.
According to The New York Times, protests began at 8 a.m. in Minnesota outside the B.H. Whipple Federal Building, with a march to the Government Plaza building scheduled for later in the afternoon. Minnesota has become the epicenter of anti-ICE protests over the month after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were fatally shot by federal immigration agents only weeks apart from each other.
Students at the University of Minnesota have been instrumental in organizing demonstrations across the state, with the university’s Somali Student Association and Black Student Union among the movement’s leaders.
“They wanted to intimidate us and to spread fear in our hearts, but that isn’t going to work. That’s exactly why we are going back,” Dahir Munye, the president of the Somali Student Association, said during a news conference at Minneapolis City Hall on Wednesday. “The only way to truly fight back is to extend and expand the shutdown movement from last Friday.”
Protests against ICE were held consistently throughout 2024, but they have significantly increased in scale and scope over the last month. Last Friday, hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans participated in a similar economic blackout. Tragically, the following Saturday, Alex Pretti was fatally shot by a still unidentified federal agent. As a result of Pretti’s shooting, protests continued throughout the week in Minnesota, but also spread nationwide.
In my backyard of Arizona, several bookstores and cafes have announced closures in solidarity with the economic blackout. Students at several high schools have already staged walkouts throughout the week, with more scheduled for Friday. Arizona’s East Valley had its own ICE situation this week, after several Zipps locations were raided by federal agents, with ICE activity only intensifying throughout the Phoenix Metro area throughout the week. I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been carrying my passport around and avoiding areas I regularly frequent in an effort to avoid ICE.
In Colorado, a quarter of Border Valley School District teachers have called out in solidarity with the strike. A similar scene played out on Friday in Knoxville, Tennessee, as hundreds of students walked out to protest the ongoing ICE raids in their city. From coast to coast, people are making their voices heard that ICE needs to get out of our cities.
If you can’t strike simply because you can’t afford to miss a day of work, that’s completely understandable. You can still participate in the economic blackout by avoiding any unnecessary shopping. If you absolutely have to buy something, shop local. One of the most powerful weapons at our disposal is the dollar. President Donald Trump won’t ramp down ICE activity because it’s the right thing to do, but if enough of his corporate cronies report that this immigration campaign is bad for the bottom line, there’s a chance we could see an about-face.
In addition to the widespread protests, a coalition of state prosecutors announced this week that they would be holding ICE agents accountable for violations of state laws and constitutional rights. “If we have to hunt you down the way they hunted down Nazis for decades, we will find your identities. We will find you. We will achieve justice,” Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said during a news conference on Tuesday.
“We are up against people who, simply put, find the law inconvenient, because, heaven forbid the Constitution would limit their desires at unlimited power,” Krassner told reporters. “We are going to fight against federal overreach.”
Do you understand how badly you have to be doing your job for a group of prosecutors to start bossing up on you? I can’t, in my admittedly young-ish 33 years, remember a time when legal officials felt it necessary to speak that way to the federal government.
On Friday, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul introduced legislation that would forbid state law enforcement from cooperating with ICE. “This is about a rogue federal agency that’s been unleashed on American streets for the sole purpose of creating chaos, carnage and fear,” Hochul said during a news conference.
Anyone who says striking or protesting is futile, because we’re already seeing, at least on the state level, the power of collective action. The more people take to the streets, hopefully, we see more state prosecutors join the coalition, and more states make similar moves as New York to protect the people from ICE’s blatant disregard of constitutional rights.
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