Minneapolis unity vs ICE terror

Minneapolitans have called a work stoppage for Jan. 23 with the theme of “ICE OUT of Minnesota/A Day of Truth and Freedom: No work, No school, No shopping.” What led to this clarion call that has resonated so widely across the country? 

Since President Donald Trump took office, his white supremacist administration has declared a racist and xenophobic war on migrants — from Los Angeles to Chicago to New York City. An estimated 540,000 migrants have been deported, including those along the Mexican border. (New York Times, Jan. 18)

Minneapolis has become ground zero in the struggle against Department of Homeland Security director Kristi Noem’s fascistic storm troopers, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. They began to flood the city with terror in early December as part of a larger, federal “Operation Metro Surge.” This surge led to the ICE fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good, recorded for the world to see on Jan. 7. 

The initial targets of ICE in Minneapolis were migrants from the East African country of Somalia. Trump had referred to the Somali community, the largest population outside of that country, as “garbage” to justify targeting them for deportation, regardless of their citizenship status. 

Neighboring communities began organizing a citywide defense of the Somali community that inspired the rest of the country. This coordinated mobilization included using visual and audio equipment to warn people when ICE invaded vulnerable communities, businesses, schools, churches, etc., “hunting” for migrants, very reminiscent of the days of “slave” catchers in the Deep South over 200 years ago.

If there seems to be a parallel between the Israel Occupation Forces’ genocidal tactics in Gaza, it is not a coincidence. For two decades ICE agents have been training with the IOF. 

Good’s murder fuels solidarity

But once the murder of an unarmed Renee Good outraged the country, solidarity with the migrant communities intensified throughout the city and the state to counter deepening ICE repression. Student walkouts and rallies along with other forms of protests electrified the city, reminding one of the militant protests and no business as usual actions in response to the police lynching of George Floyd there in May 2020. 

Besides the Somali migrants, ICE has detained Indigenous people, attacked and arrested a disabled woman, shot a Venezuelan resident and attacked Black people, including children, with tear gas and stun grenades, with impunity.

The reactionary Department of Justice (DOJ) had the audacity to call for an investigation of Good’s widow, Becca Good, for her political activities as an anti-ICE monitor. To justify her murder, Noem referred to Renee Good, also a monitor, as a “domestic terrorist.” 

Six Minnesota prosecutors resigned from the Justice Department in protest of this bogus investigation. Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot Good, has not been arrested, much less charged with first-degree murder. 

ICE and police work hand in hand

As the heroic resistance against ICE continues, Trump has threatened to send 2,000 more storm troopers to bolster the 1,000 originally sent in December. Trump also announced that he is prepared to send 1,500 U.S. troops to Minneapolis from the Army’s 11th Airborne Division, based in Alaska, evoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. 

This federal law gives the president the unilateral authority to deploy troops to any city in response to a rebellion. This act was last carried out by President George H.W. Bush during the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion when four white police officers were acquitted by an all-white jury for the savage beating of Black motorist Rodney King, caught on video. 

The governor of Minnesota, Tim Walz, and the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, have publicly requested that ICE leave the state in the wake of the Good shooting. Trump responded by calling for a DOJ investigation against these two Democratic Party leaders.

Walz and Frey have also called for peaceful protests and have given the police the green light to arrest and jail any activist involved in militant confrontations with ICE. 

The movement in Minneapolis is faced with not just one but two fronts of state repression — one federal, based from ICE and potentially the army, and the other being local and state-based police. These two fronts may have varying ranges of authority and tactics but share the same objective under a capitalist society — to keep social order when it comes to upholding the private property rights of the ruling class elite. The bottom line is that neither the police, ICE nor the military are friends of the workers and oppressed peoples, especially when the masses threaten to rebel against intolerable conditions. 

This protest uprising is not confined to Minneapolis. It is being felt throughout the country where social injustice is rearing its ugly head. The call for the Jan. 23 work stoppage in Minneapolis has resulted in calls for solidarity and resistance in other cities where ICE has also invaded, including New York City and Philadelphia, and the list is growing day by day. 

The heroic struggle in Minneapolis shows that despite all the ICE terror coupled with police brutality that has been unleashed, what is most decisive is classwide resistance in solidarity first and foremost towards the most oppressed and marginalized peoples — Black, Brown and Indigenous. And it is this political solidarity that the ruling class and their repressive state fear the most. 

The time has come to abolish ICE and the police.