Stop ICE Terror: Minneapolis Calls De Facto General Strike

Mass protests have taken place across the country after an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Good in Minneapolis, executing her in her car as she tried to drive away. The shooting has ignited an extraordinary wave of resistance. In the Twin Cities and beyond, students walked out of school on Monday in protest, refusing to sit in silence while federal immigration officers operate with impunity in their cities and refusing to accept state violence in their neighborhoods as normal.

People across the United States have taken to the streets demanding accountability and justice, that ICE agent Jonathan Ross be arrested and charged and that ICE terror be stopped immediately. As we’ve seen in cities like Chicago and Los Angeles, this mass resistance has the power to effect great change. In response, Donald Trump on Tuesday claimed a “day of reckoning & retribution is coming” to Minnesota. Unions, faith groups, community organizations and more in Minnesota have called for a “day of truth and freedom” on Friday, January 23rd, asking people to refuse to work, to shop and to go to school - effectively calling for a general strike. “We are going to prove that people care for each other. That people love on one another. That community stands with and for each other,” said JaNaé Bates Imari, Auxiliary Minister of St. Paul's Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church. She went on, “Freedom is not just the freedom from constraints. It is the freedom to have safety, it is the freedom to have joy, it is the freedom to be able to thrive.”

ICE isn’t just going door-to-door terrorizing communities. It’s spying on entire neighborhoods and cities. Its operations are powered by data from multiple government sources including the IRS, Medicaid, the TSA as well as commercial location data, and the agency has contracted with surveillance company Palantir to build the so-called ImmigrationOS to target and prioritize immigration raids. Palantir has secured more than $900 million in federal contracts under the Trump administration.

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