How Minneapolis Protesters Sustained Month-Long ICE Resistance
A Minneapolis mother of three was shot and killed by an ICE agent on January 7. What followed was a month-long campaign that shut down businesses, filled jails with clergy, and forced the federal government to pull back 700 agents. The resistance to Operation Metro Surge offers a case study in how protesters maintain momentum when the initial outrage starts to fade.
The killing of Renée Good sparked immediate controversy. Bystander video showed ICE agent Jonathan Ross firing three shots as Good attempted to maneuver her Honda Pilot away from agents who’d surrounded her vehicle. The Trump administration called it “domestic terrorism.” Vice President JD Vance labeled it “classic terrorism.” State officials rejected that framing—video evidence suggested Good was trying to escape, not attack.
Seventeen days later, Alex Pretti became the second fatality. The 37-year-old VA hospital nurse was documenting federal agents when he intervened to help a woman being pepper-sprayed. Border Patrol agents tackled him, someone shouted “He’s got a gun”—Pretti had a licensed firearm—and agents fired roughly 10 rounds at close range.
The Coalition
The resistance was unusual for the breadth of organizations that showed up and stayed. Unions don’t typically coordinate with anarchist collectives. Clergy don’t usually plan actions with graduate student unions. The alliance that formed around these two deaths bridged those divides.
The January 23 general strike pulled together SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, the Communications Workers, the Graduate Labor Union, transit workers, stage employees, city workers, and both Minneapolis and St. Paul teachers’ unions. Several of these unions operated under no-strike clauses—participating meant accepting risk in court.
Roughly 100 religious leaders joined the action, representing multiple denominations. They knelt in prayer at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport, blocking roads while singing hymns and holding photos of detained immigrants. United Methodist Rev. Mariah Tollgaard and Rabbi Emma Kippley-Ogman were among those arrested. Police are less likely to use force against people praying than against younger secular protesters.
University of Minnesota students coordinated through their graduate worker union, AFSCME Local 3800, the Black Student Union, and student government. They’d later establish a sit-in at Morrill Hall, with four students chaining themselves to the building’s steps. “I’m here to show up and speak out for the students that can’t be here, for the students who are afraid to leave their dorms,” spokesperson Robbie Logan said.
Community organizations—the Party for Socialism and Liberation, Black Lives Matter Minnesota, the Asylum Seeker Solidarity Collective, the No Kings Coalition—brought grassroots mobilization capacity, observer networks, and tactical planning. These groups were integrated in decision-making, not for show.
The General Strike
January 23 became the most economically disruptive day of the campaign. Organizers estimated 50,000 to 100,000 people participated across the Twin Cities. The action unfolded simultaneously at multiple sites—a tactical choice designed to generate media attention and pressure at different points.
The airport action started at 10 a.m. with roughly 1,000 protesters joining religious leaders blocking roads. They wore heavy winter clothing and religious vestments, forming a prayer line while holding placards featuring detained UNITE HERE Local 17 members. The target was specific: Delta Airlines and Signature Aviation, both of which facilitate deportation flights.
The largest mobilization happened downtown that afternoon. Workers and community members marched from US Bank Stadium to the Target Center in temperatures that hit -20°F. More than 700 small businesses and several major cultural institutions closed or reduced operations in solidarity. Labor Notes reported seeing as many as 50,000 to 100,000 demonstrators from elevated vantage points, “snarling traffic, lifting banners, and waving handmade signs in gloved hands.”
The DHS response was blunt: “Why would these bosses not want these threats out of their communities?” The response admitted without saying so that the strike had succeeded in disrupting normal economic activity enough to require a federal response.
The strategy behind choosing a general strike format—rather than a typical march and rally—appeared rooted in an analysis that confrontation with ICE alone wouldn’t compel policy change. Economic disruption might force state and local officials to pressure the federal government to scale back Operation Metro Surge.
Clergy Civil Disobedience
The airport action used civil disobedience in a way that sent a clear moral message while remaining physically peaceful. The 100 religious leaders represented an extraordinary mobilization of faith institutions against federal immigration enforcement.
This tactic connected the opposition to a longer historical tradition—both the medieval concept of sanctuary in religious spaces and the contemporary sanctuary movement that emerged in the 1980s to protect Central American refugees from deportation. During that earlier period, religious leaders violated federal immigration law by harboring undocumented Central Americans fleeing civil conflicts in Guatemala and El Salvador.
The participants were issued misdemeanor citations for trespassing and failure to comply with peace officer orders—relatively light treatment compared to charges faced by other arrested protesters. Using religious authority created space for civil disobedience with reduced consequences. The move also generated media coverage emphasizing moral dimensions rather than confrontation.
The participation sparked criticism from religious leaders within faith institutions. Southern Baptist Convention pastors and evangelical leaders defended the church as sacred space that shouldn’t be disrupted for political purposes.
February 7: Tactical Escalation
The February 7 protest at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building marked a tactical shift. Rather than the mass march format of January 23 or the civil disobedience of the airport action, February 7 was characterized by confrontation with law enforcement.
Hundreds of protesters gathered at Powderhorn Park for a memorial ceremony. Chief Arvol Looking Horse, a Lakota spiritual leader, led speeches, music, and poetry honoring Good and Pretti. This memorial component grounded the action in collective mourning before the confrontation occurred.
Once the crowd moved to the federal building, the nature of the protest changed. According to Hennepin County Sheriff’s Office accounts, agitators began throwing bottles and ice chunks at law enforcement. Police declared the assembly unlawful. Many protesters dispersed, while roughly 100 remained in what became a standoff with deputies, state troopers, and conservation officers. At least 42 people were arrested.
The choice to engage in confrontational tactics—throwing projectiles at police lines—was a step up from earlier actions. This tactical decision occurred against the backdrop of Tom Homan’s February 4 announcement that 700 federal officers would be withdrawn from the state. The announcement left the movement facing a question: should the withdrawal be treated as a partial victory to accept, or should the campaign continue until complete ICE withdrawal was achieved?
The escalated tactics on February 7 suggested segments of the movement viewed the partial withdrawal as insufficient. Confrontational actions that result in police declarations of unlawful assembly generate dramatic visual imagery—riot police confronting protesters in freezing temperatures—that can mobilize supporters. They also create cases that can challenge policing practices.
They also create negative imagery that can alienate moderate supporters, undermine unity, and create liabilities for arrested participants facing federal charges.
What the Movement Achieved
The movement succeeded in generating media attention and disruption of normal governance and economic activity. The January 23 strike brought tens of thousands into demonstrations in subzero temperatures, demonstrating broad opposition to federal immigration enforcement.
The biggest policy result was Homan’s February 4 announcement that roughly 700 federal officers would be withdrawn from the state, reducing the total federal immigration enforcement presence from approximately 2,800 to 2,100. This represented withdrawal of one-quarter of those deployed under Operation Metro Surge.
While this fell short of the movement’s stated goal of complete ICE withdrawal from the state, it represented acknowledgment by federal authorities that the scale of deployment had become politically costly. Homan’s framing emphasized cooperation from “county authorities” who were now “allowing ICE to take custody of illegal aliens before they hit the streets,” suggesting the withdrawal was framed as tactical adjustment rather than movement victory.
The movement had succeeded in compelling the Trump administration to acknowledge that Operation Metro Surge’s scale was unsustainable, at least at the announced level.
Where the Movement Hit Walls
Despite successes and partial policy wins, the movement faces obstacles to reaching its stated goals. The demands included complete ICE withdrawal from the state, criminal prosecution of officers involved in Good’s and Pretti’s killings, expansion of sanctuary protections for immigrant students, and abolition of ICE. As of mid-February 2026, none of these goals have been met.
The federal government blocked investigations into the killings that might have led to criminal prosecution. According to reporting from The New York Times, FBI Director Kash Patel and other senior DOJ officials ordered FBI agents to halt a civil rights investigation into Good’s killing hours after agents equipped with a signed warrant prepared to document blood spatter and bullet holes in her vehicle.
The official reason for stopping the investigation was concern that pursuing it would “contradict President Trump’s claim that Ms. Good ‘violently, willfully, and viciously ran over the ICE Officer.'” This federal obstruction of civil rights investigation demonstrates the limits of protest pressure when the White House is politically committed to a narrative.
This obstruction led to the resignation of six federal prosecutors in the state, including Joseph H. Thompson, who’d coordinated the civil rights investigation. The resignations created a crisis in the U.S. Attorney’s Office, depleting it of experienced prosecutors. The resignations appeared insufficient to force reversal of the DOJ decision to block the investigation.
Historical Precedents
The sanctuary movement of the 1980s mobilized religious leaders to provide safe haven for Central American refugees fleeing civil conflicts, violating federal immigration law by harboring undocumented asylum seekers. When the Justice Department prosecuted sanctuary activists, the movement employed defense strategies based on international refugee law and constitutional arguments about freedom of religion.
Though prosecutions achieved some convictions, they also generated sympathy for defendants and accelerated a shift in opinion. By 1990, Congress had passed legislation granting Temporary Protected Status to Salvadorans and Guatemalans in the U.S., providing protection against deportation.
The parallels to contemporary religious participation are notable. In both periods, religious leaders engaged in violation of federal law to resist immigration enforcement, framed their civil disobedience in theological terms, and generated sympathy through moral authority associated with religious institutions. The 1980s movement involved prolonged harboring of individuals, requiring churches to commit long-term and creating risk to churches themselves. The 2026 airport action involved brief tactical civil disobedience designed to disrupt specific federal operations.
The 2018 Occupy ICE Portland occupation provides the most directly comparable recent precedent. Beginning in June 2018, activists established a semi-permanent encampment outside the ICE detention facility in Portland, blocking access and maintaining visible opposition over 38 days. The occupation deployed confrontational yet nonviolent tactics, maintaining physical presence that disrupted normal facility operations while remaining committed to nonviolence.
The Portland occupation didn’t achieve its stated goal of closing the ICE facility or ending immigration enforcement operations. After 38 days, federal police cleared the encampment through force, and the facility resumed operations with intensified security measures that made future occupations more difficult.
The Twin Cities movement appears to have learned tactical lessons from Portland. Rather than attempting occupation of a single site, organizers used different tactics at different sites—general strike disrupting the entire metropolitan economy, airport civil disobedience, federal building confrontations, university campus actions. This spread-out approach may be more resilient than the concentrated occupation model because it doesn’t create a single point where federal police can forcibly clear the movement.
Strategic Options Moving Forward
As of mid-February 2026, the ICE opposition faces a moment to regroup and decide next steps following a month of mobilization. The partial withdrawal of 700 officers represents both achievement and incomplete victory, making it unclear how the movement should evolve.
The challenges include maintaining mobilization in the absence of escalating events, keeping unity despite tactical disagreements about whether to accept the partial federal withdrawal, and providing support to the growing number of arrested participants facing federal charges.
The university-based student organizations have signaled continued commitment, with demands that universities declare themselves “sanctuary campuses” providing targets for ongoing organizing. Unions’ participation suggests workplace organizing around immigration enforcement issues could continue beyond the January 23 strike. Faith communities have demonstrated willingness to engage in ongoing opposition, suggesting religious participation in future actions remains possible.
The movement also faces growing money and time problems, risks for participants, and the challenge of maintaining broad unity as different constituencies prioritize different objectives. Federal prosecution of participants in anti-ICE organizing scares people away from future participation, especially among immigrants with shaky status.
What happens in federal politics will shape whether the movement’s wins last or are reversed. If the Trump administration prioritizes immigration enforcement as a central policy objective—as recent statements and administrative actions suggest—then the 700-officer withdrawal may represent a temporary break rather than a shift, with agents possibly sent back once attention moves to other issues.
Conversely, if political pressure continues and if the midterm election cycle creates incentives for elected officials to distance themselves from controversial enforcement operations, the movement’s pressure may generate additional policy concessions.
The ICE opposition of January-February 2026 represents one of the most broad-based campaigns against federal immigration enforcement in contemporary America. By maintaining visible opposition for a full month following Good’s fatal shooting, the movement succeeded in preventing the story of federal violence and immigration enforcement from disappearing from discourse.
The movement’s tactical diversity—combining mass general strikes, faith community civil disobedience, confrontational street demonstrations, university campus actions, and union participation—put pressure on many places at once, creating a combined effect that went beyond what any single tactic could achieve. The alliance-building that brought together unions, faith communities, student organizations, community-based activist groups, and immigrant rights advocates created political force that went beyond the usual protest groups.
The policy win shown by the February 4 announcement of 700-officer withdrawal demonstrates that organized opposition can compel concessions from federal authorities, even when those authorities are ideologically committed to increased immigration enforcement. The failure to achieve the movement’s full array of stated objectives indicates that protest pressure alone, however widespread, hits limits when the federal government controls the police and federal agents and is politically committed to enforcement patterns.
The question of whether partial wins should spark continued organizing toward policy transformation, or whether movements should consolidate gains and shift energy toward elections and building organizations, remains contested within the movement. This strategic question—how to turn protest pressure into lasting change—will likely shape where the movement goes in the months and years ahead.
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