Did Mass Arrests Strengthen or Weaken Minneapolis ICE Resistance?
Renée Good was shot and killed by a federal immigration agent outside her vehicle in Minneapolis, and thousands took to the frozen streets. One month later, 42 people were arrested during a commemoration protest at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building. The question now facing organizers and observers: did these mass arrests and the aggressive protest methods strengthen the movement against ICE enforcement, or undermine it?
It depends on what you think success means.
Good’s death on January 7, 2026 came during Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration enforcement operation in U.S. history. Video showed federal agents surrounding her Honda Pilot on a snowy street. State and local officials said the Trump administration was wrong that Good had attempted to run over an officer. When the Justice Department said it wouldn’t charge anyone, six federal prosecutors resigned in protest.
From General Strike to Confrontation
Within days of Good’s killing, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey told ICE to “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” Governor Tim Walz put the National Guard on standby.
Then came January 23—seventeen days after Good’s death. Organizers called it “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom,” and it brought between 50,000 and 100,000 people to downtown Minneapolis despite temperatures dropping to minus 20 degrees. Around 700 businesses closed in solidarity.
That same morning, 99 clergy members blocked traffic at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, kneeling in prayer and singing. All were arrested. Reverend Katherine Lewis said later the experience felt “holy,” telling reporters she felt called to witness against government violence despite the severe cold and risk of arrest.
Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse at a VA hospital, the next day in the Midtown Phillips neighborhood. Bystander video showed Pretti had been helping a woman knocked down by federal agents when the confrontation escalated. Officers fired roughly ten shots at close range.
Two U.S. citizens. Two killings by federal agents. Seventeen days apart.
The February 7 Turning Point
The commemoration protest one month after Good’s death started peacefully. Hundreds gathered at Powderhorn Park for a memorial service attended by Good’s family. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota spiritual leader, led a ceremony. Participants shared music and poetry honoring both Good and Pretti.
But when protesters moved to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building—where ICE had established operations—things changed. Video documentation showed protesters throwing bottles and ice chunks at law enforcement lines. Police declared the gathering unlawful. About 100 people remained in a standoff with deputies and state troopers. At least 42 were arrested.
The strike on January 23 focused on shutting down businesses. The clergy arrests focused on showing moral conviction through peaceful arrests. The action on February 7 involved physically confronting police.
ICE officials claimed demonstrators had “helped a criminal escape” and left an agent “permanently maimed”—claims other people disputed. Mayor Frey’s social media response focused only on the memorial portion, stating “thousands showed up to remember and honor Renee Good and Alex Pretti” without addressing the later confrontations.
Coalition Structure
The resistance didn’t emerge from a single organization but from a coalition bringing different groups with different ideas about how to protest. University of Minnesota student groups—the Graduate Labor Union, Black Student Union, and Student Government—demanded not just ICE withdrawal but also campus sanctuary policies and expanded protections for international students.
Labor unions helped organize everything. Service sector unions coordinated business closures. The Minneapolis Federation of Educators mobilized teachers, their blue union hats visible at the march on January 23 despite official leadership taking a cautious stance.
Clergy networks gave the movement moral weight. Protestant, Catholic, and Jewish leaders organized around enforcement as a moral issue, connecting the resistance to past religious movements.
National Nurses United organized healthcare workers around Pretti’s death, and said their colleague had been murdered, calling for ICE abolition. Immigration justice organizations organized quick responses when people were being deported. Neighborhood groups set up ICE watch programs to warn immigrants when federal agents were around.
Democratic Socialists of America and other left-wing organizations criticized Mayor Frey and Governor Walz for not calling for ICE’s immediate withdrawal until after Good’s death. More radical organizers pushed for escalating tactics and abolition demands, while others pushed for moderate approaches like better oversight and reforms.
Measuring Success: Four Different Frameworks
Policy Changes
Three days before the protest on February 7, White House Border Czar Tom Homan announced that roughly 700 officers would be withdrawn from Minnesota—a 25 percent reduction from the 2,800 deployed during Operation Metro Surge.
Whether the protests caused this is still debated. The timing suggests they gave in before things got worse. But Homan may have decided the operation had done enough and agents could be moved elsewhere.
The withdrawal was partial, not total. The movement’s primary demand was complete ICE withdrawal from Minnesota. With 2,000 agents remaining, this wasn’t a full victory or total defeat—a partial win on the main demand.
No criminal charges have been filed against the agents who killed Good or Pretti. The University of Minnesota hasn’t announced sanctuary campus policies.
Media Attention and Public Consciousness
The killings and subsequent resistance generated international media attention, with the BBC and Democracy Now! providing extensive coverage. Major U.S. outlets including the Associated Press and Star Tribune covered the protests, arrests, and policy debates.
The massive strike on January 23 got less dramatic news coverage than either the clergy arrests or the confrontation on February 7. Media coverage of clergy emphasized the unusual nature of religious leaders engaging in civil disobedience. The action on February 7 generated coverage too, though some outlets framed it as “violence” or “chaos.”
Research shows the relationship is complicated between confrontation and attention. Larger demonstrations tend to receive more coverage regardless of confrontational elements. But mass arrests, particularly involving sympathetic populations like clergy, create stories that make protesters look serious.
A survey from January 2026 found that 46 percent of Americans supported abolishing ICE, compared to 41 percent opposed. This shows the movement succeeded in making ICE abolition a mainstream idea.
Sustaining Participation
Groups kept showing up to multiple protests despite the cold, arrest risks, and emotional strain. Clergy networks showed capacity to sustain involvement. Labor unions demonstrated ability to coordinate economic disruption. Student organizations showed willingness to take significant risks.
But legal consequences make it harder to keep people involved. Individuals arrested face potential criminal charges—conviction records, fines, or incarceration creating long-term barriers to participation. For younger participants, arrest records can affect employment, housing, and education, potentially scaring people away from future protests.
Those who threw projectiles faced heightened legal risk, as throwing things at property can result in more serious charges than participation in permitted protests or nonviolent civil disobedience. Some organizers questioned whether confrontational tactics would alienate moderate residents sympathetic to immigrants but uncomfortable with confrontation.
Imposing Costs on Federal Operations
Operation Metro Surge’s deployment of 2,800 federal agents was a massive commitment. The sustained resistance meant federal agents had to spend time and money managing protests, processing arrests, and handling counter-operations.
The 700-agent withdrawal suggests federal officials may have decided it cost too much and looked too bad compared to what they accomplished. Federal agents faced significant extra work and hassle from clergy arrests and confrontations, with agents reportedly invoking Good’s death in confrontations—suggesting the resistance was taking a psychological toll.
From the movement’s perspective, making things expensive and difficult counts as success even if direct policy concessions remain limited. Ongoing disruption can change what the federal government does by making things more expensive and politically costly. The announcement on February 4 suggests this approach worked, even if partially.
Historical Comparisons
The closest comparison is Occupy ICE Portland from June to July 2018, where activists established a six-week encampment surrounding the ICE field office. The Portland action shut down the facility temporarily and inspired occupations at other ICE facilities. But long-term policy outcomes were limited. The facility eventually reopened, and the movement didn’t achieve closure or significant policy changes.
Portland emphasized staying there continuously to maintain pressure over time. Minneapolis had protests on specific days. While the scale in Minneapolis was substantially larger, protesting on specific days instead of staying there may have let federal operations recover between actions.
Portland didn’t emphasize confrontation or damaging property. It focused on nonviolent obstruction. The confrontational elements on February 7 in Minneapolis was a more aggressive choice.
The Ferguson uprising following Michael Brown’s killing in August 2014 involved months of sustained protests, confrontations with police, and substantial civil disobedience. The uprising generated national attention and made police violence against Black people a major topic of national conversation.
But five years later, research showed the movement didn’t achieve much change. Police killings didn’t decrease—they increased. Body cameras were widely adopted but proved less effective than advocates hoped. Officer Darren Wilson wasn’t convicted. Ferguson shows that big protests, even involving confrontation and arrests, don’t automatically lead to policy changes.
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s offers lessons about mass arrests and movement success. The sit-in campaigns of 1960-1961 resulted in thousands of arrests but helped integrate public places. The strategy combined large-scale, disciplined, peaceful civil disobedience with willingness to accept arrest.
Some organizers adopted “Jail, No Bail” tactics—remaining in jail to force authorities to pay for keeping them in jail and show commitment by accepting legal consequences. This worked partly because protesters stayed peaceful and the obvious injustice of segregation created public pressure.
The clergy arrests in Minneapolis, characterized by kneeling prayer and singing, showed this nonviolent civil disobedience approach. The action on February 7, with projectile-throwing, was different from the pure nonviolence strategy that characterized the most successful civil rights campaigns.
Research by scholar Erica Chenoweth has demonstrated that nonviolent campaigns are about twice as likely to achieve their goals as violent or property-destructive campaigns. Campaigns that stay strictly nonviolent and attract broad groups of the population have historically succeeded when more than 3.5 percent of a population participates.
The movement in Minneapolis may have exceeded this threshold in peak participation on January 23, but its move toward confrontation may have undermined the conditions that research suggests maximize movement success.
Competing Theories of Change
Different organizations had different ideas about strategy.
More radical elements believed that ongoing disruption, confrontations, and creating crises would force federal authorities to negotiate. This theory says that oppressive systems continue because they’re comfortable for those in power and don’t cost powerful people enough. By creating disruption and raising political costs, activists can force elites to negotiate.
History supports this theory. The Montgomery Bus Boycott created economic disruption that forced municipal authorities to negotiate. The strike on January 23 was based on this idea—by closing businesses and stopping work, organizers aimed to demonstrate the costs of federal enforcement.
But there’s a difference between economic disruption (which can be broadly sympathetic) and confrontation with police (which can polarize opinion). Disruption via boycott or strike relies on lots of people participating and creates pressure through economic pressure. Confrontation via projectile-throwing gives you less power—it risks police counteraction, can alienate moderate supporters, and creates legal vulnerabilities.
The clergy participation had a different theory focused on showing moral conviction through their religious authority. Religious leaders have moral authority that lets them speak to people’s conscience even among people who wouldn’t call themselves activists. By demonstrating willingness to risk arrest, clergy aim to shift the moral narrative.
This matches what happened in both the Civil Rights Movement and the Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s. The clergy arrests on January 23 showed this approach. The subsequent escalation to confrontational tactics on February 7 was a different approach from the moral witness idea.
Labor unions had yet another theory, focusing on economic disruption and working-class power. The strike on January 23 put this theory into practice. However, the strike, while massive in scale, didn’t prevent subsequent federal violence—Pretti was killed the next day.
The Escalation Debate
Proponents of confrontational tactics argue that visible, forceful resistance shows commitment and makes things more politically costly for federal operations, and keeps the issue from being dismissed as unimportant. The willingness to absorb risk and legal consequence shows they’re serious in a way that can convince more people and force authorities to take demands seriously.
The specific context of federal violence—Good and Pretti’s killings—justified escalated resistance. From this perspective, staying restrained after federal agents killed U.S. citizens would be an inadequate response. Confrontation becomes not just a tactic but a moral expression of grief and rage.
The announcement on February 4 of agent withdrawal, which came after escalating actions but before the confrontation on February 7, could mean that sustained disruption was working.
Critics argue that escalation shrinks the coalition by pushing away moderate supporters who sympathize with immigrant rights but oppose confrontation with police. Media coverage of bottle-throwing, particularly in outlets describing such actions as “violence,” can shift public perception from sympathy for victims to concern about disorder.
Federal authorities can use confrontation as an excuse to crack down harder. When protesters throw projectiles, law enforcement officials can claim they face safety threats that require protective equipment and forceful response. Confrontation can give them excuses to increase enforcement instead of giving you leverage.
The legal risk from confrontational action is also significant. Participants in projectile-throwing face heightened risk of felony charges compared to participants in permitted protests or nonviolent civil disobedience. This means fewer people willing to participate in future actions.
Research suggests that confrontational actions, while generating media attention in the short term, may be less effective at building sustained movements than strategies that combine lots of people, staying nonviolent, and building coalitions. The massive strike on January 23, involving hundreds of thousands of people, may have shown the movement’s strength more powerfully than the smaller, confrontational action on February 7.
Current Status and Future Choices
As of early February 2026, the federal government had announced a partial withdrawal but kept a large enforcement presence. Criminal prosecution of the officers involved in Good and Pretti’s killings remained unlikely. The movement’s biggest demands—complete ICE withdrawal and abolition—remained unmet.
The 700-agent withdrawal could be seen as either giving in to pressure or moving agents elsewhere. The Trump administration’s broader agenda emphasized expanded enforcement and suggested the Minnesota withdrawal didn’t mean a broader retreat.
Organizers faced choices about keeping momentum going. The month-long campaign showed they could mobilize hundreds of thousands, coordinate economic disruption, and generate national media attention.
Student organizers continued pushing for sanctuary campus policies, which could be a more sustainable campaign focused on changing university policy rather than confrontation with federal authorities. Labor organizations remained engaged but faced questions about strike tactics’ sustainability. Clergy leaders continued their moral witness.
The broader national political context—the Trump administration’s commitment to aggressive enforcement, Republican control of Congress, and polarized partisan alignments—made it harder to achieve the biggest demands. Federal authorities had shown they were willing to accept serious damage to their reputation and disruption rather than giving in to demands for complete ICE withdrawal or abolition.
The confrontation on February 7 and subsequent mass arrests wasn’t a clear success or clear failure but rather a turning point in their approach in a longer-term struggle whose outcomes remain uncertain. The strike on January 23 and clergy arrests generated substantial pressure through economic disruption and moral witness. The confrontational action on February 7 was an escalation that got more media attention but also created legal risks and may have muddied the moral clarity that clergy participation had offered.
For movements seeking to challenge federal power and policy, history suggests that sustained campaigns combining economic disruption, broad coalition participation, moral clarity, and smart use of media attention are most likely to achieve policy change. The resistance in Minneapolis achieved several of these elements—particularly the economic disruption of the strike on January 23 and the moral authority of clergy participation—but the subsequent escalation toward confrontation makes where the movement should go next unclear.
Participants will face ongoing choices about how to balance aggressive tactics with keeping people involved over time. The federal government’s partial response—withdrawing 700 agents while maintaining substantial enforcement presence—creates ambiguity the movement will need to figure out.
Whether the announcement on February 4 means federal authorities are responding to pressure and may negotiate further, or whether it is all the Trump administration will give, will significantly affect what the movement can do next. The resistance in Minneapolis will likely be remembered not just for the confrontational protest on February 7 but for the entire month of escalating actions—the mobilization following Good’s death, the strike, the clergy arrests, the confrontation.
That arc showed both what’s possible and what’s complicated about resisting federal power—the ability to create disruption and pressure, but also how hard it is to turn disruption into policy change when federal authorities stay committed to enforcement despite political costs. Whether the movement can sustain momentum, broaden its coalition, and figure out how to balance aggressive tactics with keeping people involved over time will determine whether this month of resistance represents the beginning of a sustained campaign for change or a dramatic moment that doesn’t lead to policy changes.
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