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Labor Unions Play Key Role in Combating ICE in Minnesota
Heavy-handed and lawless tactics by federal agents are "attack on oppressed sections of the working class," says Kieran Knutson, president of CWA Local 7250 in Minneapolis.
Jan 31, 2026
nited States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Border Patrol began “Operation Metro Surge” targeting the Twin Cities nearly two months ago. Since then, they have taken the lives of Renee Good and Alex Pretti while terrorizing Minnesota’s immigrant communities.
The massive deployment of immigration officers to Minneapolis and Saint Paul has been met with an incredible response from the community. Neighbors have come together to develop complex rapid response networks to track ICE and notify vulnerable people, keep immigrant families fed and protected with strong mutual aid networks, and make their opposition to what amounts to a full-scale federal invasion clearly visible.
This past Friday, unions, faith leaders, and community organizations organized a day of mass protest and economic disruption, punctuated by a rally and demonstration in well below sub-zero temperatures attended by tens of thousands.
What’s next for organized resistance in the Twin Cities? To get a picture of the situation on the ground, Inequality.org checked in with experienced labor organizer and activist Kieran Knutson, the president of Communications Workers of America Local 7250 in Minneapolis.
Chris Mills Rodrigo: What has your experience been like on the ground in Minneapolis over the last two months?
Kieran Knutson: It’s unlike anything I’ve ever lived through before. There are 3,000 ICE agents in the Twin Cities metro area, just by comparison the Minneapolis Police Department is between 800 and 900 cops.
You see them frequently and they’re constantly active, whether that be abduction raids, missions where they have the name of someone they’re trying to grab specifically, or just straight up racial profiling while ripping people out of gas stations or as they’re picking up their kids from daycare.
And confrontations with ICE have been intense. They’re deploying tear gas, rubber bullets, flash grenades. Brutalizing people. It’s hard to describe, it really just strikes me as a fascist paramilitary force, a force of occupation.
CMR: How has that presence affected the community you live in?
KK: One the one hand, huge numbers of Latino workers in particular are just locking down. People stopped going out altogether. Imagine being stuck inside, not being able to go to the bar, go see friends, run errands, none of that stuff. I think there’s this level of terrorism that even if you don’t ever run into ICE you do fear it.
On the positive side, in the neighborhood that my wife and I live in, for example, there are 700 people in the rapid response network. And my understanding is that there are eight or so similar neighborhood networks across the Twin Cities — that means there’s thousands of people participating in this movement. Tons of people here are outraged, the whole society hates ICE here and that’s heartening.
CMR: What has labor’s role been in community response?
KK: The first thing to say is that the immigrant portions of the working class are an incredibly important part of the working class in the Twin Cities and have really strengthened it to be much more pro-union and more militant. Some unions are heavily immigrant, so what’s been going on can’t help but affect them. Our local is less so, but we do have this spirit of an injury to one is an injury to all that we’ve cultivated over the years.
We see this as an extremely important fight, and labor unions have been involved in the scaling up of rapid response networks and planning actions like the big day of action last Friday.
CMR: Can you tell me more about how labor was involved in organizing that?
KK: The idea for it came out of the labor movement. There have been talks for some time about how unions have to be more serious about being able to do strikes, and political strikes in particular. There’s this problem in U.S. labor law where almost every collective bargaining agreement has a strike clause. And while this action was not able to avoid that, what it did do was create a situation where tens, maybe hundreds, of thousands of workers were absent from work, almost like a mass sick out.
The unions built the coalition which includes a lot of faith groups and community organizations, ones that represent the Somali community, the Latino community, Native American groups.
Also, since the George Floyd uprising, there have been some significant labor struggles in the Twin Cities area — teachers here went on strike, nurses have done strikes. I think that’s given people more confidence. I wouldn’t underestimate the importance of the experience, and the networks, that came out of the uprising in the response to ICE today.
We really wanted to push to make this action a mass one, so we included no school and no shopping so that it could become a society-wide effort. There was a huge amount of support from small businesses, I think 700 ended up closing.
CMR: What was the intended message of the action?
KK: Some union organizers pointed out that early on in his term, when Trump was listing cities that he was going to send ICE to, San Francisco was on the list. Trump backed off though, saying that tech executives had called him to explain that deployment wasn’t necessary. So some of the thinking was, there are all these CEOs and billionaires with corporate headquarters here in Minnesota that have been silent about this reign of terror in our communities, we should start squeezing them into speaking up.
And it kind of worked — on Sunday a letter came out from the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce with over 60 big CEOs signing on. That showed the business class is willing to say something to the Trump regime about the chaos it’s causing.
CMR: The day after this incredible show of solidarity, ICE officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, a union member. What’s the next escalation for labor?
KK: On Monday, the first day back at work after the action, coworkers that I talked to all felt very excited about Friday. They saw the national coverage, how big the march was despite -20º weather, how celebrities got behind it. And then, to them, Saturday felt like retaliation.
Some people are calling for staying on strike, or a real strike. Our membership hasn’t had a chance to discuss next steps yet, but speaking with other labor activists what makes sense to me is to organize a substantial assembly of rapid response groups, unions, activists, and community organizations to hash out what’s next.
CMR: What makes ICE and the occupation of the Twin Cities a labor issue?
KK: It’s an attack on oppressed sections of the working class, some of the poorest paid sections of the working class, and sections of the working class that have the least rights.
I think the administration is also aimed at the Twin Cities because of the George Floyd uprising, a sense of disciplining the population that had been a big part of that. I think that unions which want to be fighters for the working class have to be a part of this fight. This army that’s being constructed could just as easily be unleashed against workers who are organizing or on strike, or on social movements.
This is a dangerous, dangerous force that has to be defeated. To leave this force intact would mean a constant danger for all of us.
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From Maine to Minnesota and Beyond, Tens of Thousands March to Demand 'ICE Out!'
"We want to show solidarity," said one employee at a worker-owned bakery in Los Angeles. "We've seen historically that strikes work. I hope the violence stops. I want ICE out of our communities."
Jan 30, 2026
Popular outrage over President Donald Trump's deadly campaign targeting immigrants and their defenders sparked a National Shutdown day of protests across the United States on Friday, as people from coast to coast took to the streets demanding an end to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "reign of terror."
"No school, no work, and no shopping," the National Shutdown said on its website. "The entire country is shocked and outraged at the brutal killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Silverio Villegas González, and Keith Porter Jr. by federal agents."
"While Trump and other right-wing politicians are slandering them as 'terrorists,' the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt: They were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation," the campaign continued.
"Every day, ICE, Border Patrol, and other enforcers of Trump’s racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbors and sow fear," the protest organizers added. "It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!"
BREAKING: For the second week in a row Minneapolis came out in full force for the nationwide shutdown demanding ICE out of everywhere. pic.twitter.com/bOnN8nWEI4
— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) January 30, 2026
One week after an estimated 50,000 protesters marched in downtown Minneapolis for the "ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom" rally, at least tens of thousands of people braved subzero wind chill temperatures to protest the ongoing Operation Metro Surge blitz in the Twin Cities.
Rock icon Bruce Springsteen—who this week released a song called “Streets of Minneapolis" to pay tribute to activists fighting Trump's assault on immigrants and American democracy—made a surprise appearance at a benefit concert for the families of Good and Pretti.
Maine Public Radio reported that over 150 businesses, mostly in the Portland area, closed their doors Friday amid Operation Catch of the Day, during which ICE enforcers have arrested hundreds of people in the Pine Tree State.
"Today, the working class of Portland has sent a clear message to those in power: Your power is derived from our labor, and we are not afraid to withhold our labor for the safety of our neighbors," South Portland retail worker Keeli Parker told MPR.
In Chicago—where ICE's Operation Midway Blitz prompted a special commission appointed by Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker to recommend the prosecution of federal agents who violate people's constitutional rights—Nick Mayor, co-owner of Brewed Coffee in the Avondale neighborhood, told the Chicago Sun-Times that the cost of closing his business for the day "pales in comparison to the cost of what is happening to other people and their families, with their lives getting taken and torn apart.”
More than 1,000 people packed into Washington Square in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah, where protesters chanted slogans including “Power to the people, no one is illegal,” and, “No justice, no peace, we want ICE off our streets!”
Three hundred miles southwest of Salt Lake City in St. George, Utah, dozens of demonstrators rallied in the city center, holding signs reading, "ICE Out" and "the wrong ICE is melting." One disapproving motorist yelled, "Go back to California" while driving by, the Salt Lake Tribune reported.
In Los Angeles, Proof Bakery, a worker-owned cooperative in Atwater Village, also shut its doors for the day.
"We want to show solidarity," Proof Bakery worker-owner Daniela Diaz told KABC. "We've seen historically that strikes work. I hope the violence stops. I want ICE out of our communities."
Incredible scene at Brown University as thousands of schools across the country stage walkouts to protest ICE’s reign of terror.History will remember who stood up and who stayed silent against state sanctioned murder.
[image or embed]
— Matt McDermott (@mattmfm.bsky.social) January 30, 2026 at 11:26 AM
Hundreds of high school students walked out of their classrooms in Asheville, North Carolina, where sophomore Henry Pope told the Mountain XPress, “We reject the ICE terror that’s sweeping across our communities."
“We reject everything this far-right, billionaire administration stands for, and we need justice to be brought to Jonathan Ross and every other killer ICE agent in this country," Pope added, referring to the officer who fatally shot Good earlier this month.
Kelia Harold, a senior at the University of Florida in Gainesville, rallied on campus with around 100 other students.
“Instead of sitting on my own and being helpless, it really helps to come out here,” she told the New York Times, noting Pretti's killing.
“If that could happen to him," she said, "I don’t see why it couldn’t happen to anyone else.”
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Rights Groups Warn Trump DOJ Is 'Trying to Scare Journalists' With Lemon, Fort Arrests
“The arrests today of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for covering an anti-ICE protest are a blatant attempt to intimidate others from covering criticism of the administration and its policies," said an Amnesty International official.
Jan 30, 2026
The arrests of two US journalists on Friday over their reporting on a protest at a church in Saint Paul earlier this month sent shockwaves through rights organizations that have long defended reporters around the world from similarly blatant attacks on press freedom.
"The Trump administration cannot send federal agents after reporters simply because they don't like the stories being reported," said Clayton Weimers, executive director of Reporters Without Borders North America.
Former CNN anchor Don Lemon, now an independent journalist, and Georgia Fort, an independent reporter based in Minnesota, reported on and filmed a protest organized by local residents on January 18 against a pastor at a church who was also reported to be working as a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer.
On Friday morning, federal law enforcement agents took the two journalists into custody, accusing them of a "coordinated attack on Cities Church." The Department of Homeland Security said Lemon was being charged with conspiracy and interfering with the First Amendment rights of worshippers, and cited the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act—a law that prohibits intimidating or using force against people who try to access reproductive health services but also contains provisions covering places of worship.
Local political candidates Trahern Jeen Crews and Jamael Lydell Lundy were also arrested over the protest. Fort was released Friday afternoon.
"I should be protected under the First Amendment," she said upon her release. "I've been advocating for mainstream media journalists who have been brutalized for months. Do we have a Constitution? That is the pressing question that should be on the front of everyone's minds."
Shortly after Georgia Fort's release from federal custody, law enforcement in riot gear cleared out the 1st floor of the US District courthouse in downtown #Mpls, forcing everyone outside. The independent journalist spoke to reporters there. Here is a clip @FOX9 pic.twitter.com/VsAmClM3YY
— Paul Blume (@PaulBlume_FOX9) January 30, 2026
Weimers emphasized that federal authorities had previously filed a criminal complaint against Lemon over the protest, but it was rejected by a federal magistrate judge, which "enraged" Attorney General Pam Bondi.
“Time and time again we are seeing the Trump administration clamping down on free speech rather than upholding human rights. Black and Brown journalists have been particularly targeted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression."
Amnesty International USA also emphasized that the arrests were not just attacks on Lemon's and Fort's rights, but also "a critical threat to our human rights.”
“US authorities must immediately release journalists Don Lemon and Georgia Fort, said Tarah Demant. "Journalism is not a crime. Reporting on protests is not a crime. Arresting journalists for their reporting is a clear example of an authoritarian practice."
“The arrests today of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort for covering an anti-ICE protest are a blatant attempt to intimidate others from covering criticism of the administration and its policies," Demant said, noting that the arrests came as top Trump administration officials and agents on the ground have made clear the White House views people who film ICE agents—an action that is broadly protected by the First Amendment—are "domestic terrorists."
“Time and time again we are seeing the Trump administration clamping down on free speech rather than upholding human rights," she said. "Black and Brown journalists have been particularly targeted for exercising their rights to freedom of expression."
Chip Gibbons, policy director for Defending Rights and Dissent, noted that "journalists have an important role to play in covering protests" like the ones that have been taking place in Minneapolis and all over the country against Trump's deployment of federal immigration agents to detain and deport immigrants and US citizens alike, the majority of whom have had no criminal backgrounds despite the president's claim that the operation is targeting "the worst of the worst."
"Social movements are often vital parts of our nation’s history and it is essential that they be documented in real time," said Gibbons. "By covering the protesters and their message, journalists help to inform our public debates, helping Americans get vital information about sides of an issue that otherwise go ignored."
"It is for precisely this reason that we have repeatedly seen journalists covering protests across the United States being subject to brutality, false arrests, and bogus charges," he added. "The arrests of Don Lemon and Georgia Fort are clearly part of that shameful practice... Abusing the legal process to stage retaliatory arrests of a journalist is an attack on our democracy. We call on the charges to be dropped and any public officials involved with pushing them to resign from office immediately."
Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law president Damon T. Hewitt also noted that "targeting two acclaimed Black independent journalists for criminal prosecution sends a chilling message at a moment when independent Black media is more necessary than ever."
"Freedom of the press is not optional—it is foundational to a thriving multiracial democracy and is a vital constraint on government overreach," said Hewitt. "This is not just stifling dissent—it’s chilling speech and stifling basic access to information and facts, targeting viewpoints the administration dislikes, and retaliating against law firms, universities, nonprofit organizations, and now reporters who value truth, equality, and justice. This is authoritarianism. And it must not stand.”
Emily Peterson-Cassin, policy director for Demand Progress, said the Trump administration was "trying to scare journalists away from covering the events in Minnesota" by arresting Lemon and Fort.
"The Trump administration, she said, "is clearly waging an ongoing, unconstitutional campaign to intimidate a free and fearless press into submission and must be held accountable.”
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Senate GOP Rejects Sanders Amendment to Give ICE's Extra $75 Billion to Medicaid
"Instead of funding a domestic army which breaks the Constitution every day, we should be putting that money to help the people of our country get the healthcare that they need," said the progressive senator.
Jan 30, 2026
US Sen. Bernie Sanders' amendment to repeal a $75 billion funding boost for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and direct that money toward Medicaid "to prevent hundreds of thousands of Americans from losing the healthcare they desperately need" was rejected by a slim majority of his colleagues on Friday.
The amendment—which failed 49-51—is one of seven Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) agreed to allow votes on before senators moved to an appropriations bill to avert another full-blown federal government shutdown, which passed 71-29. Although the White House is preparing for a shutdown because funding lapses at midnight, the House of Representatives is expected to send the spending bill to President Donald Trump's desk on Monday.
Sanders' (I-Vt.) amendment targeted $75 billion in ICE funding included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the budget package that congressional Republicans and Trump imposed last summer. In addition to giving a bunch of extra money to an agency that's violently raiding US cities as part of the president's mass deportation agenda, the OBBBA gave more tax cuts to the ultrarich while slashing social safety net programs such as Medicaid, which provides health coverage to low-income Americans.
"This country, under President Trump, every single day, is moving closer and closer toward an authoritarian society where we have a reckless and unbalanced president who wants more and more power in his own hands," Sanders said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote, citing the Republican leader's contempt for Congress, the courts, the media, and more.
"And now, on top of all of that, what we are seeing is that one our great American cities—Minneapolis, Minnesota—is essentially being occupied by ICE," he continued. "What's going on in Minneapolis and has gone on in other cities is not what this country is about."
Sanders argued that "we do not want or need, and must never allow, federal agents—people paid by federal tax dollars—with masks on their face, knocking down doors; ignoring the Constitution; grabbing people; putting them into unmarked vans; taking 5-year-olds away from their parents; putting them in detention centers; shooting American citizens in cold blood."
In Minneapolis in recent weeks, ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good; an immigration agent shot and wounded a Venezuelan man named Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg; and two members of Customs and Border Protection fatally shot Alex Pretti. Meanwhile, Liam Conejo Ramos, a 5-year-old boy abducted by immigration agents in the city and sent with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, is now in poor health, according to his family.
ICE's actions in Minnesota and beyond have fueled calls for Congress to cut funding for or even abolish the agency—and the debate over Department of Homeland Security appropriations has delayed the broader spending package, leading to the looming but seemingly short-term government shutdown.
"What ICE has become is not an agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, what it has become is Trump's domestic army," Sanders said. "And I would hope that my conservative friends—people who year after year get up here and say: 'We believe in small government. Get the government off our backs. Let local communities make their own decision.'—finally stand up and say that in America, we do not need a domestic army terrorizing communities throughout this country."
"Instead of funding a domestic army which breaks the Constitution every day, we should be putting that money to help the people of our country get the healthcare that they need," declared the senator, a leading advocate of Medicare for All.
While the vote on Sanders' amendment was mostly along party lines—only Republican Sens. Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) sided with the chamber's Democrats and both Independents—many Democrats joined most of the GOP in voting for the broader appropriations bills.
Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, was among the two dozen Democratic senators and four Republicans who voted against the package. He said that "I could not, in good conscience, vote for the federal funding deal," noting that "I promised the people of Vermont that I would not support another penny for ICE unless there were fundamental reforms to how that agency operates."
"While I voted against this bill because of the disastrous situation with ICE, it does include a number of important provisions that I successfully fought for," he highlighted. "As the ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee in the Senate, I am proud that this legislation includes the largest increase in mandatory funding for community health centers in a decade, begins to address the massive shortage of doctors in America, takes on the greed of pharmacy benefit managers, makes it easier for the American people to receive low-cost generic drugs and expands pediatric cancer research."
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