loading . . . Hundreds of Businesses Join General Strike Against ICE Protesters participates in the Free America Walkout at the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul, Minnesota, on Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026.Jones Schneider/ZUMA
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A breakfast restaurant, a bike shop, and a brewery: these are some of the hundreds of businesses across Minnesota closing their doors Friday as part of a general strike to push Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of the state.
βThereβs a time to stand up for things, and this is it,β Alison Kirwin, the owner of Alβs Breakfast in Minneapolis, told the _New York Times_. Kirwin is closing up shop for the day as part of the wider strike to push βICE out of Minnesotaββthe motto for the protest. βIf it takes away from a day of our income,β Kirwin said, βthat is worthwhile.β
The general strike, along with planned demonstrations and a march, is a part of what organizers are calling a βDay of Truth and Freedom.β The event will involve protests, prayers, and fastingβwhether it be from food, work, or economic activity. The day is being organized by a coalition of clergy members and supported by many businesses, movement leaders, labor organizers, and even the entire Minneapolis City Council.
According to Christa Sarrack, president of a labor union that includes about 6,000 of Minnesotaβs hospitality workers, Friday may be the largest worker action in Minnesotaβs history. βWe cannot simply sit by and allow this to continue,β Sarrack told the _Times_. βWe must use every tool that we have to fight back.β
The day of actions will crescendo with a march leading to the Target Center, an arena downtown. Minnesotans coming out to protest are facing extremely cold weather conditionsβwith temperatures in the negatives all day.
> Incredible. Itβs -12Β° (-24.4Β° C) at MSP airport right now.πͺ
>
> β Sanho Tree (@sanho.bsky.social) 2026-01-23T16:31:49.271Z
Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minnesota Regional Labor Federation, AFL-CIO, told _The Guardian_ she is not concerned: Minnesotans are βbuilt for the cold.β
βAnd we are going to show up,β Gabiou continued, βbut folks are going to need to pay attention to not just the march, but what people are doing, the individual stories of solidarity.β
In the days that have followed ICE agent Jonathan Ross shooting and killed RenΓ©e Nicole Good in her car, federal immigration agents have ramped up their operations. The government agents shot another person, deployed chemical weapons on protesters (including minors), detained several kids from one school district, and dragged a naturalized US citizen out into the cold in only his underwear, among many other violent incidents.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) posted on Friday in support of the day of protest, writing, βToday people across Minnesota are coming together to send a message: βICE Out of Minnesota.β Minnesotansβ rights are under attack, and ICE needs to leave our streets.β
While general strikes, or work stoppages across industries, are rare in the United States today, that wasnβt always the case. As the _Minnesota Reformer_ pointed out, these strikes were once a key staple of protest politics in this country but have been less common due to the stifling of labor rights by those in power. In Minnesota today, with hundreds of businesses across different sectors deciding to cede profits to send a message, organizers are showing it can be done again.
βItβs tense and emotional, and folks are hurting,β Bishop Dwayne Royster, the executive director of Faith in Action, one of the leading religious organizations planning the day of prayer and protest, said. But he applauded the people of Minnesota for a βdeep resilience and willingness to stand together in ways I havenβt seen folks do in a very long time.β https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2026/01/venezuela-immigrant-ice-abduction-terror-maduro-trump/