By Harvey Markowitz
January 16, 2026
Minneapolis
Steam billows from atop a coffee mug sustained by cold hands in the frigid passenger’s seat of a hatchback that has weathered many journeys. Nearby on a busy street in south Minneapolis, locals amble about, carrying out their daily sojourns. For now, it is quiet; a waiting game from a parking space, where volunteers monitor passing traffic for their license plates.
Massive march in Minneapolis protested the ICE murder of Renee Good.
Then, out of the quiet but light suspended action, a known vehicle passes along the road. “That’s them,” says the co-pilot, and the activation of the ignition turns the cold coach into a hot hatchback; the pursuit of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) snatchers has begun.
By following the agents with loud, continuous noise from whistles and car horns, ICE attempts to raid immigrants’ homes cannot be conducted with the element of surprise, and the agents are forced to abandon their quarry.
Across the broad Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, people are fighting back against what they consider an occupation by a despotic government that appears opposed to their way of life. Left unopposed, the evidence of ICE kidnappings lies apparent in the streets, where cars can be found with broken windows, a sliced seatbelt and even an engine still left idling.
If locals do not show sufficient deference to ICE interlopers, the agents punish them with tyrannical brutality. Agents threaten them with violence, and as has been reported by many news agencies, often with actual violence, whether it be bodily harm or destruction of their property.
On Jan. 7, an ICE officer named Jonathan Ross shot and killed 37-year-old Minneapolitan Renee Good mere blocks away from the 2020 savage police murder of George Floyd. Though opposition to ICE was already palpable before, the killing has ignited a burning indignation within locals.
At a recent community meeting in a south Minneapolis neighborhood, locals expressed their view that the Trump administration’s ICE operation — called Operation Metro Surge — is an attempt to “make an example” of a rebellious city with an organized civic community. To locals, if ICE is not stopped, it will only embolden the authorities with regard to their objective: to establish a Herrenvolk [racial superiority theory of the German Nazis] dictatorship across the country.
Day by day, new atrocities emerge that gall the sensibilities of those who love peace and freedom. Another man shot; another teen tossed out of a car; a woman kidnapped in the street, kicking and screaming for help. But when ICE grows crueler, Minneapolitans grow bolder still.
On Jan. 13, a coalition of labor unions and community organizations called for a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” to take place on Friday, Jan. 23. By taking the step of conducting what is essentially a general strike, residents who are fed up with despotism are finally taking a step that will demonstrate their resolve. ICE purportedly plans to carry out this operation until June 2026. Minneapolitans are eager to show that they are not to be underestimated.
