Thousands of protesters hit the streets in cities across the United States on Friday to protests to demand the withdrawal of federal immigration agents from Minnesota following the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
The demonstrations were part of a nationwide day of action, advocating “no work, no school, no shopping” in a protest against the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration crackdowns.
Protesters in Philadelphia, New York, Boise and Columbus gathered at city halls, courthouses, statehouses and legislative buildings, according to an action tracker. Students at high schools and colleges in Florida, California and other states staged walkouts. In Milwaukee and in Buffalo, Wyoming, people are gathering at parks and on street corners.
In Minnesota, where tens of thousands turned out for economic actions and a rally last Friday to protest ICE’s surge in the city, some businesses closed for the day while others stayed open under different models, either donating revenue from the day or providing free coffee and a place for people in the community to rest safely.
In New York, thousands chanted and marched in frigid temperatures. Among the protesters were young and old people in thick coats, hats and gloves.
In California, people hit the streets of cities including San Francisco, Oakland and Los Angeles.
By Friday evening, demonstrations in Los Angeles had turned heated. Some protesters gathered in front of a downtown federal building, throwing bottles and other debris, spray painting anti-ICE slogans on the walls of the building. Authorities activated a tactical alert.
Law enforcement officers sprayed chemical irritants into a crowd of about 200 protesters outside the Metropolitan detention center, according to the Los Angeles Times. The Bureau of Prisons facility, which ICE uses to detain immigrants, has become a site of repeated demonstrations.
Video footage circulated on X appeared to show a group of demonstrators topple a small structure, then drag a large, red dumpster and push it to block the entrance. Protesters lobbed water bottles at law enforcement officers held clear shields that read “police”.
Organizers said Friday’s “blackout” – or general strike, as some are calling it – is part of a growing nonviolent movement to combat ICE’s aggressive enforcement tactics.
Those deaths include Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Keith Porter in Los Angeles and Silverio Villegas González in Illinois. Friday’s national protest leaders, many of them students at the University of Minnesota, are calling for ICE to leave the city after its nearly month-long operation. They say economic pressure through work stoppages and consumer boycotts is just one way to demand accountability and reform.
“We are calling for this strike because we believe what we have been doing in Minnesota should go national,” said Kidus Yeshidagna, president of the Ethiopian Students Union at the University of Minnesota and one of the students organizing the strike.
“We need more people and lawmakers across the country to wake up.”
Yeshidagna is part of a coalition of student groups that organized the Minnesota shutdown last Friday, in which thousands of people flooded the streets in sub-zero temperatures and hundreds of businesses shut their doors to demand justice for Good, who was shot by an ICE agent while trying to protect a neighbor. Last weekend, agents killed Pretti, another resident who was observing agents’ activities.
The student groups – including the associations representing Black, Somali, Liberian, Ethiopian and Eritrean students and the graduate labor union – first gathered on 21 January to plan the calls for local and national strikes. “We came out in huge numbers despite the cold,” he said, referencing last week’s actions. “We are now doing it again.”
From restaurants and clothing retailers to bookstores and coffee shops, businesses across dozens of cities stayed closed.
Bench Pressed, a letter press and retail shop in Minneapolis, stayed open and donated all profits from Friday to people in the community who need help paying rent, which is due this weekend for February. Little Joy Coffee in Northfield, south of Minneapolis, sold a $5 “Fuck ICE” honey and cinnamon latte with all proceeds going to mutual aid funds, and has supplies for people to screen-print items with anti-ICE messages and to reach out to their representatives.
Modern Times, a cafe in Minneapolis, has indefinitely switched to a free, donation-based model and was closed on Friday to join the general strike. The business said it would be referred to as “Post Modern Times” until the ICE surge is over, refusing to generate taxable income to fund the government that is brutalizing the city.
Elliott Payne, the Minneapolis city council president, posted a video after stopping by a local high school walkout, writing: “Our kids are leading the way and it’s our job to stand with them and make a better world possible for them.”
Students in Knoxville, Tennessee, walked out of their classes this morning to join an “ICE Out” protest, organized by Indivisible Knoxville. In a video originally posted by the Democratic representative Gloria Johnson, students and adults chant and hold signs with messages saying “Defund ICE” and “Skipping Our Lessons to Teach You One”.
Sophie Pedigo, a senior at South-Doyle high school, told the Knoxville News Sentinel: “I fully believe in freedom of speech. And what’s happening is so wrong, and I feel like education, the place where you get your education, should not be somewhere that you should be scared of being ripped from your family. That’s just not right. And that’s why I’m here today, because I’m fully against that.”
Over 20 Tucson, Arizona, schools closed today, as several staffers participated in the strike.
Online, footage spread of high school students in places including San Antonio, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah, participating in the walkouts. Hundreds of New York City high school students marched toward a downtown park as a part of the day of action.
Volunteers with the People’s Forum, a New York-based non-profit centered on political education and organizing, have been shoveling snow in preparation for the thousands of attendees anticipated to show up at today’s protest in New York City’s Foley Square.
“Three weeks ago, no one considered, or even thought of the word ‘general strike’ as having any relevance in the US context, and now it’s the one thing on everyone’s minds,” said Manolo De Los Santos, executive director of the People’s Forum. “Not just as a figment of imagination, but as a real tool for how people fight back against this fascist regime in Washington.”
Murad Awawdeh, president and CEO of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), spoke to the Guardian on his way to attend the New York City ICE protest in Foley Square.
“This [administration] has never been about safety and security, and it’s simply always been about cruelty,” he said.
The neighbors and family members of Good and Pretti contacted the student organizations to share their support for the protests, Yeshidagna said.
“We want to obstruct the pillars that are upholding the Trump administration,” Gloriann Sahay, a national coordinator with 50501, said.
Yeshidagna, who grew up in St Paul, said he was in high school and 15 minutes away from where George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. Since Trump sent ICE officers to Minnesota, he and his peers in the student organizations have watched his friends and family members be targeted.
Friday’s protests coincided with the looming prospect of a government shutdown as Senate Democrats – and some Republicans – cobbled together a last-minute deal that funds virtually all government agencies except Homeland Security.
Democrats are limiting DHS funding to give them leverage to push for a variety of reform measures, including banning agents from wearing masks and having ICE obtain warrants to make arrests. The House will have to pass the $1.2tn funding package on Monday to avoid a prolonged shutdown.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
