National Shutdown Tactics Echo 1970 Student Strike—With Key Differences
Protesters brought hundreds of thousands of people to more than 300 locations on January 30, 2026, to demand the abolition of Immigration and Customs Enforcement through organized strikes, walkouts, and boycotts. Organized primarily through a coalition of University of Minnesota student unions, the UMN Graduate Labor Union, AFSCME Local 3800, and the Black Student Union, the action brought back the general strike as a way to fight back while comparing itself to the 1970 student strike that followed the Kent State shootings.
But the comparison reveals as much difference as similarity. The 1970 strike erupted spontaneously within days of National Guard troops killing four students, focused on ending the Vietnam War, and consisted almost entirely of student protesters. The 2026 shutdown was planned weeks in advance, included labor unions and economic boycotts along with student action, and focused on immigration enforcement instead of foreign policy.
What Triggered the Shutdown
The action emerged from a crisis that began on January 7, 2026, when ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot and killed Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three and legal observer, as her vehicle moved away from federal agents in Minneapolis. People who saw it and videos showed the opposite of what federal officials said. Instead, outside investigators said she was trying to move her vehicle from an escalating confrontation with armed federal agents.
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem defended the shooting as lawful self-defense. The federal government called Good a domestic terrorist.
Seventeen days later, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital. Video evidence appeared to show agents removing Pretti’s lawfully owned handgun before opening fire, contradicting federal claims that he had resisted disarmament. Like Good, Pretti had been filming federal agents and attempting to provide assistance to someone being detained.
These killings occurred during “Operation Metro Surge”—a deployment of over 3,000 federal immigration agents into Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning in December 2025. At first, officials said it was meant to stop immigration fraud within the Somali-American community, but it quickly turned into aggressive enforcement on the streets involving masked agents, militarized tactics, and widespread arrests.
Legal observers documented ICE agents conducting surveillance outside schools, breaking into homes without warrants, using pepper spray against civilians and children, and creating widespread fear in immigrant communities. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison and the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul filed federal lawsuit on January 12, saying the federal government violated the Constitution by overstepping state authority.
When an earlier strike on January 23 drew 50,000 to 100,000 participants in subfreezing temperatures but didn’t change what the federal government was doing, organizers escalated to the nationwide call.
The 1970 Parallel—And Where It Breaks Down
When organizers brought up 1970, it wasn’t accidental. The Kent State shootings on May 4, 1970, triggered what remains the largest student strike in American history—an estimated 4 million students at 450 universities, colleges, and high schools. Hundreds of campuses shut down for days, weeks, or the remainder of the spring semester.
The similarities are real. Both actions emerged from mass outrage at federal government violence against citizens. Both spread rapidly from what sparked them to organizing nationwide within days. Both combined marches with more disruptive tactics like sit-ins and building occupations. Both challenged federal authority and demanded significant policy changes.
The 1970 strike erupted spontaneously—only three days elapsed between the shootings and the May 7 nationwide mobilization. The 2026 shutdown was planned for over a week with clear planning together across dozens of cities, showing how social media and phones let people organize faster today.
The 1970 strike was overwhelmingly students, with adult workers playing secondary roles. The 2026 shutdown was designed as a labor-student-community coalition, with unions playing central organizing roles.
Most significantly, the 1970 action focused on a war that threatened young men through conscription. The 2026 action focused on immigration enforcement that didn’t affect many protesters, asking people to stand up for others, not fight for themselves.
The 1970 strike changed policy. Records show that the strike prompted Congress to accelerate ending American military engagement in Southeast Asia and influenced higher education decisions to remove ROTC from campuses.
As of early February 2026, the National Shutdown didn’t lead to any announced policy changes. ICE remained fully operational, no federal agents had been withdrawn from Minnesota, no prosecutions had been announced, and universities were still staying neutral.
How the Shutdown Worked
The January 30 action used economic strategies that went beyond regular protests. Organizers issued calls for “no school, no work, no shopping”—a strategy of educational, labor, and consumer disruption designed to hurt the economy enough to force political change.
In cities nationwide, thousands of small businesses voluntarily closed. Some that remained open donated some of their sales to groups fighting for immigrants. In the San Francisco Bay Area, dozens of local businesses shuttered entirely while thousands gathered in Mission Dolores Park.
The action got attention in Culver City, California, where over 800 high school students participated in coordinated walkouts while arranging independent study academic credits to protect themselves from disciplinary consequences. This tactic—arranging to get school credit for participating—was a way to work within the school system, allowing youth to participate while minimizing personal risk.
The California Department of Education issued guidance clarifying that students could participate in walkouts and that schools could make up missed class time with Saturday classes, making it legal for students to protest without damaging their grades.
But the economic shutdown tactic faced immediate challenges. Scholars argue that general strikes are most effective when close to half of workers join in. Even the most successful historical general strikes required years of labor organization to achieve economy-wide disruption.
The January 30 shutdown, despite impressive coordination, occurred while the vast majority of American workers and consumers continued normal economic activity. Most schools remained open or had most students show up. Most businesses continued operations.
The action caused disruption in certain cities and specific sectors—hospitality, cultural institutions, education in some locations—but wasn’t big enough to pressure the federal government.
The Business Owner’s Dilemma
Some businesses made choices to support the action’s objectives while remaining open, donating some of their money to groups helping immigrants or paying workers for the day off while generating business as usual. This middle ground showed the conflict between doing what’s right and financial risk.
Small business owners described anguish about choosing between showing support and financial survival. Some noted they couldn’t afford even one day of zero revenue while maintaining full wage obligations to employees.
One restaurant owner in Colorado noted that her employees, many undocumented or financially struggling, had requested to work rather than lose wages—forcing a choice between supporting the movement and respecting that workers needed the money.
Who Built the Coalition
The shutdown emerged from organizing centered at the University of Minnesota, where student unions and labor organizations transformed shock at federal killings into an organizing structure. The UMN Graduate Labor Union, representing approximately 3,000 graduate student workers, took on a central coordinating role. AFSCME Local 3800, representing clerical workers, brought union money, experience, and legitimacy.
On January 26, four days before the scheduled action, the University of Minnesota Student Unions announced the call for a nationwide “general strike.” The organizing coalition comprised these core institutional actors but quickly grew to include hundreds of organizations from different political backgrounds.
The official endorsers list included not only the usual progressive groups—Democratic Socialists of America chapters, Students for Justice in Palestine organizations, established civil rights groups—but also faith institutions, mutual aid organizations, and socialist revolutionary groups.
The grassroots component reflected strong organizing networks in the community, in Minneapolis, where relationships forged during the 2020 racial justice uprisings following George Floyd’s death provided organizing foundations. Labor unions representing postal workers, airport employees, teachers, and service workers brought organizational power and experience organizing workers that student groups alone couldn’t have mobilized.
Who showed up reflected the coalition’s breadth. Students were visible but far from the majority. Union members, parents, clergy, and community residents made up substantial portions of street demonstrations. People who were there said there was emphasis on building accessible participation—child care provided at some events, making sure disabled people could participate, organizing in immigrant and communities of color.
The movement avoided having one leader, reflecting how modern movements prefer to share decision-making instead of top-down control. No single charismatic leader emerged as the public face of the campaign. Spokespersons rotated among organizers and affected community members, with emphasis on making sure immigrants and families at risk could speak.
What the Research Says About Effectiveness
Erica Chenoweth, the Stanton Professor of the First Amendment at Harvard Kennedy School and leading researcher on civil resistance, has documented that general strikes and mass labor withdrawal are among the most effective tools of nonviolent pressure available to movements fighting powerful institutions.
Her research on 323 campaigns from 1900 to 2006 demonstrated that nonviolent campaigns succeed at roughly double the rate of violent uprisings and that strikes and boycotts prove effective at disrupting regime stability.
Chenoweth argues that successful civil resistance requires mass participation from diverse constituencies, getting police and elites to defect or refuse orders, using multiple tactics, not one approach, and sustaining pressure over time while staying nonviolent.
The National Shutdown organizers designed their action to put these principles into practice: mass participation from different backgrounds, putting pressure on wealthy people and powerful institutions, mixing labor strikes with consumer boycotts and student action, and a plan to keep the pressure going past one day.
But the research also suggests limits. Historical general strikes required years of labor organization and workplace structure to achieve the coordination necessary for economy-wide disruption. The January 30 shutdown, despite impressive coordination in dozens of cities and hundreds of organizations, took place at a time when far fewer workers belong to unions since the 1970s.
Comparing to 2006’s Immigration Boycott
The shutdown also brings up the 2006 “Day Without an Immigrant” that mobilized approximately 1-2 million immigrants and their allies to skip work, school, and shopping on May 1, 2006. That action, occurring in response to a proposed law that would have made it a crime to be undocumented, disrupted things nationwide in a coordinated way and generated prominent media coverage.
Some economic sectors were disrupted—agriculture experienced labor shortages in some regions, numerous restaurants and meatpacking plants closed, and the Los Angeles port operated at reduced capacity.
Yet the 2006 action also failed to achieve its main goal. HR 4437 didn’t pass the Senate, but major immigration reform that would let people become citizens never happened. In the immediate aftermath, conservative opposition intensified. ICE enforcement increased during the remainder of the Bush administration and continued under Obama.
This pattern—shutting things down but failing to change policy and potentially causing the government to increase enforcement—suggests that economic shutdown tactics, even when impressively scaled, may face limits in turning economic shutdowns into political change.
Measuring What Changed
Assessing the shutdown’s effectiveness requires separating success at mobilizing people from success at changing policy.
In terms of mobilizing people and getting attention, the action succeeded impressively. The coordination of hundreds of organizations in all fifty states in a nationwide action was a major organizing achievement. Media coverage spanned national newspapers, network television, international outlets, and kept spreading on social media, ensuring tens of millions became aware of the action and the ICE abolition demand.
The shutdown also succeeded in making more people see abolishing ICE as a serious political goal rather than a fringe position. The call for institutional elimination made the conversation more radical than had been typical since the mid-2010s emphasis on agency reform and oversight. Arguments from scholars and activists about ICE’s purpose as an agency designed for maximum enforcement reached more people.
In terms of their political goals, however, they achieved less.
As of early February 2026, federal immigration agents hadn’t withdrawn from Minnesota. ICE remained fully operational at the federal level. University systems hadn’t said they would stop staying neutral. No criminal charges had been filed against federal agents in the Good and Pretti cases, though a federal civil rights investigation was initiated on January 30.
The Trump administration rejected calls to withdraw. Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller referenced an “assassin” and “domestic terrorist” to characterize Pretti, mirroring the federal government’s earlier characterization of Good.
The action did produce some responses from institutions that organizers saw as partial wins. Target Corporation’s new CEO stated the company has “no cooperative agreements” with any immigration enforcement agency—a clarification that came from protester pressure and sit-ins at the company’s headquarters.
Several Republican elected officials, including Senators Murkowski and Collins, called for investigations into the shootings and questioned the federal agents’ actions, suggesting the action helped divide Republicans on ICE enforcement.
What Happened Next
The shutdown wasn’t a single event but one moment in an ongoing struggle. Within days, tensions over ICE operations contributed to a partial federal government shutdown as Congress couldn’t agree on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, with Democrats and some Republicans raising objections to funding for expanded ICE operations.
In Minnesota, state officials continued aggressive legal pursuit of the federal government. Attorney General Keith Ellison maintained that questions about whether the federal government went too far remained unresolved despite a federal judge’s rejection of his request to temporarily stop the operations.
Federal prosecutors began resigning in protest of what they characterized as political pressure to stop prosecuting federal immigration agents while investigating the victims’ friends and advocacy organizations. As of early February, six federal prosecutors had resigned, with additional prosecutors in the process of departing.
The Justice Department announced a federal civil rights investigation into Alex Pretti’s killing on January 30, though this didn’t include Renée Good’s death. Some analysts suggested opening the investigation was a response to protest pressure, while federal officials called it routine.
Nationwide, sustained protest actions continued beyond January 30. In Eugene, Oregon, federal police declared a gathering at the Federal Building a “riot” and deployed tear gas against protesters on January 31. In Minneapolis, protesters occupied Target Corporation’s headquarters, sitting in for hours while chanting against what they saw as cooperation with ICE enforcement.
People were still debating what it all meant politically. Some Republicans saw the protests as proof of radicalism requiring stronger ICE support. Other Republicans, those facing reelection in competitive districts, questioned the Trump administration’s handling and called for investigation and potential de-escalation.
Democratic politicians, ranging from moderate to progressive, issued statements supporting the protesters but didn’t openly support abolishing ICE, instead calling for policy review and investigation of excessive force.
The question of whether the National Shutdown would change politicians’ views on immigration enforcement or would turn out to be a temporary burst of protest that failed to constrain federal policy was still unanswered as of early February 2026.
Strategic Possibilities for Future Actions
The shutdown’s mixed results show both the power and limits of mass action in contemporary America. The historical precedents invoked by organizers—the 1970 student strike, the 2006 immigration boycott, general strikes in American labor history—all show that turning protests into lasting political change requires long-term organizing structures, applying pressure in multiple ways at once, and keeping the movement going even when it seems to be losing.
Sustained Workplace Organizing
Rather than relying on workers’ individual decisions to participate in a day of action, movements could invest in years of organizing at workplaces to increase union membership and win the right to strike in important industries. The 1946 Oakland General Strike occurred only after years of workplace organizing following World War II, with unions developing enough members to officially call strikes rather than merely call for worker participation.
A sustained union growth strategy would build lasting organizational structures, create bargaining power to make ICE support a negotiating issue, and create legal protections so workers could strike with official union protection instead of risking it alone.
The challenge: unions have declined since the 1970s, making it hard and slow to organize at scale. Employers aggressively resist unionization efforts. Many public sector workers face legal restrictions on strike activity.
Targeted Corporate Pressure
Rather than calling for broad consumer boycotts of the entire economy, movements could identify specific corporations most involved in ICE operations or profiting from enforcement and keep boycotting them over time.
The Montgomery Bus Boycott convinced nearly the entire Black community to boycott for 381 days against a single company, building enough pressure to force policy changes. The civil rights era campaigns where people only bought from certain businesses in Birmingham created measurable economic pressure on specific downtown businesses that supported segregation.
Consumer actions are legally protected as free speech. It’s easier to keep them going than broad economic shutdowns because they require changing what you buy rather than giving up all economic activity. They create clear corporate targets who feel consumer pressure.
The Target sit-ins and the focus on Delta Airlines and Signature Aviation for helping with deportation flights represent initial work in this direction.
Building Local Sanctuary Infrastructure
Rather than focusing on federal policy change, movements could invest in building sanctuary protections at institutions—policies that prevent police and city resources from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement—that change how ICE operates.
The sanctuary movement of the 1980s-1990s legally protected people in churches and some cities that limited what federal immigration enforcement could do. State and local governments have power to restrict immigration enforcement participation. Sanctuary laws limit what the federal government can do rather than temporarily disrupting enforcement.
The fact that Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison has filed suit against federal immigration operations suggests willingness to challenge the federal government in court.
The challenge: the federal government can override state and local sanctuary efforts. How to enforce sanctuary protections when the federal government is determined to operate remains uncertain. To get most people to support sanctuary requires convincing them, which can be slower than quick mobilization.
Multi-Issue Coalition Building
Rather than framing immigration and ICE abolition as a single-issue demand, movements could combine immigration demands with labor demands for living wages, with climate movement demands for stopping industries that extract resources and exploit immigrant workers, and with criminal demands for police abolition—creating multiple pressure points on the same institutions.
The most successful moments of American social change—Reconstruction-era racial justice, the New Deal-era labor movement, the civil rights era—happened when multiple social movements worked together against the same targets.
Multi-issue coalitions bring more people to support each demand. They create multiple demands that institutions can’t meet all at once. They build solidarity across movements, not temporary alliances for one specific goal.
Climate movements emphasize ICE enforcement’s role in enabling resource extraction on Indigenous lands. Labor movements have shared interest in ending labor trafficking and workplace enforcement that depresses wages.
The challenge: multi-issue coalitions are difficult to coordinate and can make focusing on any single issue harder. Conflicts between different issues’ strategies or priorities can break apart coalitions. Broader coalitions often get slowed down by their slowest member.
The January 2026 National Shutdown shows movements can organize quickly from different places and movement communities. It built coalition from groups that usually don’t work together and sparked sustained conversation about immigration enforcement alternatives.
But it also shows ongoing tensions in American protest movements between mobilizing people and turning that into lasting political change. The action showed collective power and moral conviction but hasn’t, as of early February 2026, achieved its main stated goals.
The historical precedents suggest that turning mobilization into durable political change requires sustained organizational infrastructure, applying pressure in multiple ways at the same time, and keeping the movement going through setbacks and fatigue. The shutdown helps us understand the power and limits of American protests today, and what strategies might work going forward—while leaving unanswered the question of whether and how mass movements can force institutions to change in today’s political climate.
This article analyzes protest and activism tactics for educational purposes. We aim to contribute to effective and ethical efforts across the political spectrum, and we present diverse viewpoints and ideas without endorsement.