The Metrics That Will Determine If the Immigration Strike Succeeds

An organized strike in February 2026 became one of the most ambitious labor actions in recent American history. Following the fatal shootings of two civilians by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis—Renée Good on January 7 and Alex Pretti on January 24—activists, labor unions, religious organizations, and community groups sparked a nationwide movement that extended far beyond the Twin Cities. The question now facing both organizers and observers is whether the strike will succeed in achieving its goals: halting federal immigration enforcement operations, securing accountability for the killings, and changing how the country handles immigration.

Success or failure can be measured through economic impact, political pressure, sustained participation, public opinion shifts, and movement durability. These measures won’t all point in the same direction, and different groups will focus on different ones depending on their perspective.

Economic Impact

The organized strike began with Minnesota’s January 23 “Day of Truth and Freedom”, during which more than 700 small businesses and several cultural institutions closed to support demands to end federal immigration enforcement. Organizers estimated that 50,000 people attended the protests despite subzero temperatures.

The City of Minneapolis Emergency Operations Center later documented the single-day event’s impact: $203.1 million in economic losses. This figure included $81 million in business losses, $47 million in worker wage losses, $4.7 million in hotel revenue losses extending through summer, and increased demand for mental health services and food assistance.

To put that in context, one week of a federal government shutdown costs the economy approximately $7 billion in lost economic activity nationwide, according to Congressional Budget Office analysis. The Minneapolis strike achieved in a single day what would require roughly 0.2 days (about 5 hours) of federal shutdown to match in economic impact nationally.

Economic disruption doesn’t automatically force politicians to concede. When White House border czar Tom Homan announced on February 4 that 700 immigration officers would be withdrawn from Minnesota, and on February 12 that Operation Metro Surge would conclude entirely, he framed the withdrawal as achieving objectives rather than yielding to protest pressure.

“As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan stated, explicitly denying any connection between the protest action and the withdrawal decision. This framing makes it harder to claim the strike succeeded.

Participation Levels

Polling conducted by a left-leaning polling group found that roughly one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the January 23 day of action or had a loved one who did. Of those participants, 38 percent stayed off the job, either because they didn’t go to work or because their employer closed for the day.

This represented unusual reach across different groups for a protest action. Two-thirds of Black voters supported the call for no work, no school, and no shopping. Support exceeded 50 percent among women, people under 34, college-educated voters, Asian voters, and Hispanic voters. Even among voters without college education, 18 percent either participated or had a loved one participate.

The No Kings Coalition brought together the St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28, SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17 (hospitality workers), the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation AFL-CIO, community organizations, and religious groups.

Rather than calling a traditional strike—which would expose unions to court orders and loss of legal recognition—organizers developed workarounds. Union leadership raised safety concerns about ICE presence, encouraged members to use accumulated sick days, personal days, or earned time off, and coordinated mass absences in ways that technically followed their contracts while achieving the same effect as a strike.

The St. Paul Federation of Educators used Minnesota’s Earned Sick and Safe Time law, which requires most employers to provide paid leave for illness, school closure due to weather, and preventive care. SEIU Local 26 similarly utilized sick leave provisions to let members participate without risking punishment.

This tactic—using existing worker protections to achieve mass action without facing the legal risks of traditional strikes—could change how unions organize within the law.

National Spread

The January 30 “National Shutdown” attempt, while not achieving the work stoppage that organizers had envisioned, showed coordination across states. One day later, on January 31, a coalition organized over 300 “ICE Out of Everywhere” protests, with CNN describing “massive crowds of protestors marching across the nation.”

Protesters gathered in cities including Albuquerque, Atlanta, Austin, Birmingham, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Cincinnati, Colorado Springs, Columbia, Columbus, Detroit, Duluth, El Paso, Eugene, Grand Rapids, Houston, Kansas City, Miami, New York City, Oakland, Omaha, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Portland, Richmond, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, Tallahassee, Washington, D.C., and Worcester. Organizers claimed that around 50,000 people joined the demonstration in Minneapolis alone on that date.

The coalition expanded to include over 1,000 supporting organizations nationwide according to movement sources. This included labor unions, faith organizations, immigrant rights groups, racial justice organizations, student associations at multiple universities, and grassroots community groups.

Political Pressure and Public Opinion

Public opinion polling by Data for Progress conducted from January 30 to February 2 found shifts in public attitudes toward ICE operations. While ICE had been viewed favorably by a +13-point margin immediately after Trump’s inauguration in 2025, the agency was by February 2026 viewed negatively by a 19 percentage point margin—39 percent favorable and 58 percent unfavorable.

With 16% more people supporting than opposing, voters supported impeaching Secretary Kristi Noem for her handling of the deadly shootings in Minneapolis, including 80 percent of Democrats and 54 percent of independents. Nearly six in ten Americans (59 percent) described the demonstrations against ICE as “mostly legitimate protests,” while 40 percent called them “mostly people acting unlawfully.”

Public opinion shifts don’t automatically lead to policy changes, particularly when the Republican-controlled Congress took no concrete action to limit the administration’s power to enforce immigration law.

Congress’s response showed growing political divisions. Democratic lawmakers called for investigations into the killings of Good and Pretti. House Democrats announced plans to launch impeachment proceedings against Secretary Noem, and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called for President Trump to fire Stephen Miller, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff overseeing immigration policy. But without control of Congress, Democrats lacked the votes to force consequences.

Historical Comparisons

The most similar historical example to the February 2026 action is the massive immigrant rights mobilization of 2006, which featured the “Day Without an Immigrant” boycott on May 1, 2006. Following congressional consideration of legislation that would have criminalized undocumented immigration, millions of immigrant workers and their allies mobilized in opposition.

On May 1, 2006, participants launched what some called “the largest demonstrations ever in U.S. history,” with millions participating in nationwide marches. Over 1 million protesters marched in Los Angeles alone. With millions of undocumented workers absent from work, whole industries had to shut down, including giant food-production plants, restaurants and stores.

The political outcomes of the 2006 mobilization, despite its scale, didn’t achieve the movement’s goals. While the Sensenbrenner bill was defeated in the Senate, Congress approved building a 700-mile border wall. The goal of reforming immigration or legalizing undocumented immigrants wasn’t achieved.

The 2006 experience demonstrates that massive economic disruption through general strike action is achievable in the United States, and that such action can influence politicians. But it also shows that even huge protests don’t automatically lead to policy victory.

The Seattle General Strike of 1919 offers another example—a five-day work stoppage by 65,000 workers called in solidarity with locked-out shipyard workers attempting to strike for higher wages.

The action was disciplined and organized. Workers created their own service delivery systems, including milk delivery organized by workers themselves when employers blocked access to supplies. The “Labor War Veterans Guard” maintained order without weapons, using persuasion only.

The Seattle General Strike ended without achieving the shipyard workers’ original demands. The action ended after five days, due to pressure from national union leaders and the difficulty of sustaining a city-wide economic shutdown. The shipyard workers’ strike persisted longer but failed to win the wage increases sought.

Movement Sustainability

The No Kings Coalition immediately announced plans for a third nationwide mobilization scheduled for March 28, 2026, with organizers predicting up to 9 million participants.

As Ezra Levin, co-executive director of Indivisible, stated: “We expect this to be the largest protest in American history.” This strategy suggests organizers saw the January-February actions as successful enough to justify continuing the campaign.

Beyond scheduled mass actions, the effort created lasting organizing networks. The ACLU of Minnesota and ACLU filed an amended complaint in Tincher v. Noem, adding new plaintiffs and submitting over 100 written statements from community members describing illegal actions by ICE and Border Patrol agents. These legal actions represent turning protest energy into lawsuits—a way to hold authorities accountable over long periods.

The coalition built through the January-February actions created relationships that could support future joint actions. Union organizing benefited from demonstrating broad participation and cross-union coordination. The scale of union coordination across traditionally separate sectors—healthcare, education, hospitality, municipal work—established relationships and trust that could make future joint actions on other issues easier.

Strategies for Greater Impact

Ongoing Workplace Organizing

Rather than treating strike days as one-time events months apart, organizers could build ongoing workplace committees at targeted companies. The 2006 immigrant rights movement, despite not achieving policy victory, created lasting organizing groups that persisted for decades. Latina organizers later noted that “the more people involved in the fight, the more widespread the victory,” and that the movement succeeded in changing how labor movements approached immigration issues.

Workplace committees create local organizing groups that can respond to local crises without needing to coordinate nationally, while maintaining relationships and trust for periodic joint actions. Enforcement happens at different levels and in different places—while Operation Metro Surge concluded in Minnesota, similar operations could be announced in other cities, and even without formal operations, ICE enforcement continues nationwide.

Expanding the Coalition to Business Groups

While the January-February strikes mobilized unions, religious organizations, students, and community groups, they didn’t deliberately reach out to business groups despite the demonstrated economic impact. Over 700 Minnesota businesses chose to close on January 23, but this occurred primarily through pressure on small businesses and cultural institutions.

Studies of protests against dictatorships show that coalitions that include business leaders can speed up government policy changes. During the civil rights movement, white business leaders in Birmingham and other cities supported integration not out of moral conviction but because they wanted to end consumer boycotts and civil unrest that disrupted commerce.

If sectors of the business community—particularly those that rely on immigrant workers like agriculture, construction, hospitality, and food processing—publicly opposed enforcement operations as bad for business, it would complicate the political narrative. Business opposition carries particular weight with Republican political figures.

Connecting to Elections

Research on successful movements shows that movements that both protest and work on elections are better at achieving lasting policy change than movements that rely only on one approach. The labor movement in the 1930s-1940s combined aggressive strikes with electoral work, winning laws like the Fair Labor Standards Act and National Labor Relations Act.

The 2026 midterm elections offer an opportunity to turn February’s participants into voters, potentially changing Congress in ways that limit the Trump administration’s enforcement authority. The challenge is working on elections without losing grassroots energy—organizations differ in their ability and willingness to work on electoral politics without losing focus on building their base and protest ability.

Targeting Specific Companies

Running campaigns against companies that do business with DHS or ICE could put focused pressure on specific targets. This includes airlines providing deportation flights, private detention companies operating ICE facilities, and companies providing technology for enforcement operations.

The United Farm Workers’ grape and lettuce boycotts succeeded not by changing agricultural policy nationwide but by winning agreements with specific companies and producers. While the federal government can’t easily cease enforcement operations because of political pressure, individual corporations can change which services they provide relatively easily. Success with specific targets creates clear victories for the movement, maintains energy, and demonstrates that organized pressure produces results.

Near-Term Trajectory

The immediate future of this movement is structured around the March 28, 2026 mobilization. The period between February and March represents a test of whether the movement can maintain momentum during the organizing period before the action. Movements often lose energy between major protests unless organizers deliberately keep people involved.

The 2006 immigrant rights movement experienced this phenomenon—after the massive May 1 mobilizations, energy shifted toward elections and negotiations with Democratic politicians, and fewer people protested in the streets. The No Kings Coalition has grown each time: the April 2025 rally drew an estimated 3 million participants, the June 2025 first “No Kings” rally drew an estimated 5 million, and the October 2025 second “No Kings” rally drew an estimated 7 million.

The Trump administration’s response will shape the near-term trajectory. While Operation Metro Surge formally ended, the Department of Homeland Security can launch new enforcement operations in other cities. Tom Homan’s public statements said that enforcement operations would continue and potentially expand nationally, with agents being sent to other locations rather than standing down.

Lawsuits offer another avenue for the campaign. A federal judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security to give immigrants detained in Minnesota access to attorneys immediately after custody and before transfer out-of-state, stating that “the Constitution doesn’t permit the government to arrest thousands of individuals and then disregard their constitutional rights because it would be too challenging to honor those rights.” These court actions create ongoing litigation that could, over months or years, create legal limits on enforcement operations.

The political situation matters for what happens next. President Trump’s approval rating stood at 39 percent in February 2026, with 59 percent disapproving of his handling of the economy. Support for enforcement specifically dropped: 65 percent of Americans thought ICE actions “have gone too far,” up from 54 percent in June 2025. While Republican voters remained largely supportive of enforcement, the shift in public opinion could make the administration politically vulnerable if continued major enforcement operations cause more deaths or community disruption.

Whether the February 2026 nationwide action against enforcement operations will succeed or fail depends on the definition of success—a question that organizers, politicians, and observers will likely debate for years. In economic terms, the mobilization caused major disruption. For policy results, Operation Metro Surge officially ended, though whether the action caused this decision remains debated. For movement building, the effort created lasting relationships between groups and organizers have announced plans for larger actions.

The long-term political impact—whether the February 2026 actions lead to policy changes limiting enforcement operations, protecting immigrant communities, or holding people accountable for the killings of Good and Pretti—remains the central question. The February 2026 action represents not the end of this movement but a major turning point. What will determine success or failure—congressional action, policy changes from the White House, legal victories, ability to protect communities, and movement durability—won’t be clear for months or years.

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