Minnesotans will again take to the streets on Friday, January 23, in downtown Minneapolis to demand “ICE Out!” A coalition of labor and community groups has called a Day of Truth & Freedom, asking everyone to skip work, school, or shopping and instead march for an end to the Trump administration’s brutal anti-immigrant crackdown. It is a call that deserves support from all working people, youth, and everyone who cares about democratic rights.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/41890395

January 18, 2026

[contains 3 parts: an editorial by World-Outlook; an article from In These Times and Workday Magazine; and a press release from the Minneapolis Regional Federation of #Labor, AFL-CIO.]

MINNEAPOLIS — #Unions and community groups gathered in front of the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota, this morning to announce a day of ​“no work, no school, no shopping” on January 23 to oppose the ferocious assault on the state by federal #immigration authorities.

“We are facing a tsunami of hate from our own federal government,” Abdikarim Khasim, a Minnesota rideshare driver, told the crowd. ​“We’re going to shut it down on the 23rd. We’re going to overcome this.”

  • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
    20·
    1 day ago

    But a strike for one day? What would this do?

    To quote one of the most charismatic environmentalists of the 90s:

    Think globally, act looooocally

    It will get local business owners (including national chains) attention, that gets the mayor’s attention, that gets the govenors attention.

    If any city with any ice presence had this type of boycott where only essentials were purchased and no other money spent…

    It would have an effect on the type.of response ICE gets on the same level as the strike.

    Be it local/city/state/whatever/nationally

    The money doesn’t care till you fuck with the money, and this does in a way that they can’t exactly lash out in retaliation.

    • aaaa@piefed.worldEnglish
      29·
      1 day ago

      The money doesn’t care till you fuck with the money, and this does in a way that they can’t exactly lash out in retaliation.

      This is true, but this doesn’t fuck with the money. A one-day strike just moves the spending to a different adjacent day. People still need their food and stuff.

      Data-wise, this would come up as a tiny blip in an otherwise unchanged pattern of spending. Easily rejected by most analysts as an outlier.

      I guess I have more faith in a massive crowd demonstrating than I do in a one-day strike. At least one of them puts on a public spectacle

      • osaerisxero@kbin.melroy.org
        101·
        1 day ago

        It’s a warning shot fired at the money. If spending on that day drops 80%, it shows the money that the strike threat has teeth. It also puts that population on the street that day, and i would bet AFL-CIO in Minneapolis outnumbers the jackboots on the ground 10:1

      • yonderbarn@lazysoci.al
        71·
        1 day ago

        Sounds like you enjoy the politics of strongly worded letters then.

        It might be a one day strike and then they do it again with an even bigger crowd spanning two days. Then the next time the crowd size doubles and it’s a three day strike. Then…