The Wild Reed

Monday, January 26, 2026

Adam Serwer on How “Every Social Theory Undergirding Trumpism Has Been Broken on the Steel of Minnesotan Resolve”

The number of Minnesotans resisting the federal occupation is so large that relatively few could be characterized as career activists. They are ordinary Americans – people with jobs, moms and dads, friends and neighbors. . . . [T]he resistance in Minnesota is largely characterized by a conscious, strategic absence of physical confrontation. Activists have made the decision to emphasize protection, aid, and observation. When matters escalate, it is usually the choice of the federal agents. Of the three homicides in Minneapolis this year, two were committed by federal agents.

. . . If the Minnesota resistance has an overarching ideology, you could call it “neighborism” – a commitment to protecting the people around you, no matter who they are or where they came from. The contrast with the philosophy guiding the Trump administration couldn’t be more extreme. Vice President Vance has said that “it is totally reasonable and acceptable for American citizens to look at their next-door neighbors and say, ‘I want to live next to people who I have something in common with. I don’t want to live next to four families of strangers.’” Minnesotans are insisting that their neighbors are their neighbors whether they were born in Minneapolis or Mogadishu. That is, arguably, a deeply Christian philosophy, one apparently loathed by some of the most powerful Christians in America.

. . . [A]mong those involved in opposing ICE in Minnesota, people have a range of political views. The nonviolent nature of the movement, and the focus on caring for neighbors, has drawn in volunteers with many different perspectives on immigration, including people who might have been supportive if the Trump administration’s claims of a targeted effort to deport violent criminals had been sincere. . . . The federal agents sent to Minnesota wear body armor and masks, and bear long guns and sidearms. But their skittishness and brutality are qualities associated with fear, not resolve. It takes far more courage to stare down the barrel of a gun while you’re armed with only a whistle and a phone than it does to point a gun at an unarmed protester.

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official who had led the operation in Minneapolis, was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs.

The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive – because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about ‘Western civilization,’ while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

No matter how many more armed men Trump sends to impose his will on the people of Minnesota, all he can do is accentuate their valor. No application of armed violence can make the men with guns as heroic as the people who choose to stand in their path with empty hands in defense of their neighbors. These agents, and the president who sent them, are no one’s heroes, no one’s saviors – just men with guns who have to hide their faces to shoot a mom in the face, and a nurse in the back.

– Adam Serwer
Excerpted from “Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong”
The Atlantic
January 26, 2026

In the Face of Fascist Lies, MN Governor Tim Walz Sets the Record Straight

Minnesota Govenor Tim Walz has an op-ed in today’s Wall Street Journal. I share it in its entirety below.

_______________

The Un-American Assault on Minnesota

Federal officials are lying. My state’s Corrections Department honors all immigration detainers.

The Trump administration’s assault on Minnesota long ago stopped being a matter of immigration enforcement. It is a campaign of organized brutality against the people of our state. It isn’t just. It isn’t legal. And, critically, it isn’t making anyone any safer.

Quite the opposite: Immigration agents have now shot and killed two of our neighbors: Renée Good and Alex Pretti. And there are countless other stories of protesters and bystanders being physically attacked by federal agents, to say nothing of the chaos and violence being unleashed against the targets of these raids, many of whom have done nothing wrong except exist as a person of color.

The pretext for all this is the Trump administration’s insistence that our immigration laws would otherwise go unenforced. This federal occupation of Minnesota is, administration officials insist, about our predilection for releasing “violent criminal illegal aliens” from state custody.

I can’t stress this enough: The Trump administration has its facts wrong about Minnesota.

The administration claims that Minnesota jails release “the worst of the worst.” In reality, the Minnesota Department of Corrections honors all federal and local detainers by notifying Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when a person committed to its custody isn’t a U.S. citizen. There is not a single documented case of the department’s releasing someone from state prison without offering to ensure a smooth transfer of custody.

Yet the lies persist. This week, ICE tweeted that rural Cottonwood County had refused to honor a detainer for an alleged child sex predator. That’s not true. The county sheriff followed procedure and contacted ICE when the subject posted bail, but ICE agents were too busy wreaking havoc in the Twin Cities to do their actual job and pick the prisoner up.

Some of the administration’s claims are ridiculous on their face. For example: It claims that 1,360 non-U.S. citizens are in Minnesota prisons. The truth: Our total state prison population is roughly 8,000, and only 207 of them are non-citizens.

Earlier this month, the administration published what it claimed was a list of people who have been arrested as part of this ICE sweep, asserting that this list represents “the worst of the worst” criminals, and implying that we have been protecting them from capture.

Minnesota Public Radio investigated this claim and found it to be completely false: “Most of the people on the list had been immediately transferred to ICE custody at the end of time served in Minnesota prisons. All of those transfers happened before ICE began its surge of operations in Minnesota on Dec. 1, 2025, with some even happening years before.”

In other words, ICE is taking credit for arrests that state and local law enforcement made, activity that took place before this assault on our state even began.

Everyone wants to see our immigration laws enforced. That isn’t what is happening in Minnesota. In recent weeks, masked agents have abducted children. They have separated children from their parents. They have racially profiled off-duty police officers. They have aggressively pulled people over and demanded to see their papers. They have broken into the homes of elderly citizens without warrants to drag them outside in freezing temperatures.

That isn’t effective law enforcement. It isn’t following the rule of law. It’s chaos. It’s illegal. And it’s un-American.

I have repeatedly appealed to President Trump to lower the temperature. But he refuses. I fear that his hope is for the tension between ICE agents and the communities they’re ransacking to boil over – that he wants you to see more chaos on your TV screens, protests turn into riots, more people get hurt.

Minnesotans aren’t taking the bait. They are protesting – loudly and urgently, but also peacefully. They are helping their neighbors cope with this violent, lawless assault on people of color throughout the state – walking children to school safely, preparing mutual-aid packages, and organizing to make sure these atrocities are well-documented so that those responsible can face justice.

Minnesota is a state that believes in the rule of law and in the dignity of all people. We know that true public safety comes from trust, respect and shared purpose, not from intimidation or political theater.

This assault on our communities is not necessary to enforce our immigration laws. We don’t have to choose between open borders and whatever the hell this is. Mr. Trump can and must end this unlawful, violent and chaotic campaign, and we can and must rebuild an immigration enforcement system that is secure, accountable and humane.

– Gov. Tim Walz
The Wall Street Journal
January 26, 2026

Saturday, January 24, 2026

Honoring Alex Pretti

Earlier this evening thousands of Minnesotans gathered in their neighborhoods to hold candlelight vigils for Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs who was shot to death by Border Patrol agents working with ICE today. We also held space for Renée Good, killed by ICE agents earlier this month, and for all who have been abducted and/or traumatized by the Trump regime’s fascist occupation of Minnesota, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul in particular.

It has been and continues to be a heavy day for sure, but we know we are stronger together. And so we gathered – from Bryn Mawr to Frogtown, from Highland Park to Camden, from Seward (my neighborhood) to Mirriam Park. There are millions of us across the state and across the country who will not be silent in the face of fascism; who will not stop “showing up” until ICE is both out of Minnesota and abolished.

Earlier today, Alex’s parents released the following statement about their son.

And a 1/25/26 update . . . Following is a beautiful and powerful piece written by Jessica Hauser.

I was Alex Pretti’s final nursing student. He was my friend and my nursing mentor. For the past four months, I stood shoulder to shoulder with him during my capstone preceptorship at the Minneapolis VA Hospital. There he trained me to care for the sickest of the sick as an ICU nurse. He taught me how to care for arterial and central lines, the intricacies of managing multiple IVs filled with lifesaving solutions, and how to watch over every heartbeat, every breath, and every flicker of life, ready to act the moment they wavered. Techniques intended to heal.

Alex carried patience, compassion and calm as a steady light within him. Even at the very end, that light was there. I recognized his familiar stillness and signature calm composure shining through during those unbearable final moments captured on camera.

It does not surprise me that his final words were, “Are you okay?” Caring for people was at the core of who he was. He was incapable of causing harm. He lived a life of healing, and he lived it well.

Alex believed strongly in the Second Amendment and in the rights rooted in our Constitution and its amendments. He spoke out for justice and peace whenever he could, not only out of obligation, but out of a belief that we are more connected than divided, and that communication would bring us together.

I want his family to know his legacy lives on. I am a better nurse because of the wisdom and skills he instilled in me. I carry his light with me into every room, letting it guide and steady my hands as I heal and care for those in need.

Please honor my friend by standing up for peace, preferably with a cup of black coffee in hand and a couple of pieces of candy in your pocket, just as he would. He would remind you that caring for others is hard work, and we must do whatever it takes to get through the long shifts. Step outside with your dog, breathe in the world, hike or bike as he loved to do, and let yourself find peace in the quiet moments within nature. Stand up for justice and speak with those whose views differ from your own. Hold your beliefs with strength, but always extend love outward, even in the face of adversity.

Take one step, no matter how small, to help heal our world. Through these acts, carry his light forward in his name. Let his legacy continue to heal.

– Jessica Hauser
via social media
January 25, 2026

Related Off-site Links:
Obituary for Alex Jeffrey Pretti – MemoriTree (January 24, 2026).
Man Killed in Minneapolis by Federal Agents Identified as VA Nurse Alex Pretti: “He Wanted to Help People” – Melody Schreiber (The Guardian, January 24, 2026).
Pain, Anger, Action in Twin Cities After a Second Fatal Shooting by a Federal Agent – Hannah Ihekoronye (Minnesota Public Radio News, January 24, 2026).
Alex Pretti Remembered as Kind, Competent and Quiet – MPR News (January 24, 2026).
Video Contradicts Department of Homeland Security Claims About Killing of Alex Pretti – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 24, 2026).
Vigils Across Minnesota Remember Alex Pretti – MPR News (January 24, 2025).

UPDATES: As “Loyal Agents of Nazis” in GOP Murder Citizens, U.S. Is at “Turning Point,” Advocates Say – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 25, 2026).
Judge Grants Order Barring Feds from Altering or Destroying Evidence in Pretti Shooting – Andrew Krueger (MPR News, January 25, 2026).
“Please Get the Truth Out,” Alex Pretti’s Parents Plead as Trump Officials Baselessly Smear Shooting Victim – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 25, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts on the resistance to the Trump regime’s fascist occupation of Minnesota:
• Omar Fateh: Quote of the Day – December 4, 2025
• Photo of the Day – December 5, 2025
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Doing What We Can to Stop Unjust Arrests of Immigrants
• Great Event, Great Sign, Great Nails
• Christmas Eve Musings
• May We Do Likewise
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like” – January 7, 2026
• “It Was Murder”: 12 Powerful Responses to the Death of Renée Nicole Good
• Omar Fateh: “Folks Are Waking Up”
• A Good Faith Appeal and a Grim Response
• Why Minnesota?
• Chris Hedges on ICE: “I Have Seen These Masked Goons Before”
• Steven Donziger: “Let’s Get Real . . . ICE Is a Domestic Terrorist Organization”
• Historian Kyle Dekker: “It’s Not Nazi Ideology We Are Fighting. It’s American”
• Knowing Our Rights
• Mike Figueredo on Why Trump Might Be Pushing the U.S. to the Brink of Collapse
• Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Marianne Williamson on How to Psychologically Endure This Moment
• What Moral Clarity Looks Like in Minnesota This MLK Day
• Nemik’s Eulogy for Renée Nicole Good
• “It Was Never About Keeping America Safe”
• “ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26
• “This Was a Flat Out Execution”
• “Organized Sustained Systemic Resistance and Self-Defense Are Our Only Options”

Opening image: Michael J. Bayly

“Organized Sustained Systemic Resistance and Self-Defense Are Our Only Options”

Says Butch Ware, Green Party candidate for Governor of California, who grew up in Minnesota . . .

Yesterday we saw the biggest general strike and non-violent protest in decades in Minnesota.

This morning federal stormstroopers beat and murdered another person.

Peaceful protests are NEVER going to be enough.

[Fascists] aren’t going to stop because we don’t like [what they’re doing]. They do it because they know we don’t like it. They will stop when we stop them.

All of their systems must be shut down entirely. ESCALATE. Organized sustained SYSTEMIC resistance and self-defense are our only options.

There is good news. Believe it or not, they aren’t remately prepared for a mass uprising.

– Butch Ware
via social media
January 24, 2026

When I shared the above on Facebook, some questioned if Butch Ware is advocating (or could be seen to be advocating) violence when he says that “peaceful protests are NEVER going to be enough,” and that what we ultimately need to defeat fascism is “organized sustained SYSTEMIC resistance and self-defense.”

I can't speak for Butch, but from my talking to him and knowledge of his work, I believe that by “resistance” he primarily means the strategies of the general strike and the economic blackout. I believe by “self-defense” he means the type of things already happening in Minnesota – community members coming together to provide food, clothing, safe shelter, and other essentials to those individuals and families feeling too scared to leave their homes.

Okay, so going deeper . . . The first thing thing I’ll say is that the forum of X or BluSky or any tweet-like platform is not the best for presenting and exploring important and often complex ideas and strategies. Such platforms encourage the sound byte, the quick “like,” and then it’s on to the next one. So I get it how Butch’s comment may leave some wondering what exactly he’s talking about.

Second: Butch Ware’s area of study and expertise is Black revolutionary movements and history; he advocates for building sustainable, peaceful alternatives to our current system of unfettered capitalism, oligarchy, and war; they are alternatives rooted in African, Indigenous, and Abrahamic traditions. He has extensively studied African history and Islamic intellectual history, and cites Malcolm X and Kwame Ture as his political influences. In light of this, Butch is aware that violence has been employed by certain individuals and movements to advance liberation. He is also aware that the United Nations, in specific contexts, affirms the legitimacy of armed struggle for peoples fighting against colonial domination, foreign occupation, and racist regimes. All this being said, I don’t read in Butch’s statement a call to violence.

Butch grew up in Minneapolis, and he praises the Minnesota general strike of April 23 and the peaceful marches and rallies that accompanied it. But such one-off events aren’t ultimately going to defeat fascism. Such efforts and strategies (the general strike in particular) must be escalated so that they last for days, weeks, months – however long it takes to shut down the machinery of the state and the machinery of commerce.

Only then will we see the financial benefactors of our increasingly fascist government withdraw their support. Money talks, after all. And if those who make money from the system – BIG money – start seeing their profits collapse, they’re going to demand change. It then becomes our – the people’s – opportunity and responsibility to demand real, lasting and transformative change. No more tweaking around the edges of the system (as Democrats love to do), and no changes just to satisfy the corporate and billionaire funders of our government.

No, we need MAJOR systemic changes. There’s no going back to the way things were before the rise of Trump. Why? Because that way of doing things helped get us to where we are today. And the majority of Americans know this. Look at how deeply unpopular BOTH major political parties are. People are hungering for systemic change – a changed system; a turning around of things, a revolution, in other words. Trump lied and said he’d give the country that type of change, said that he’d “drain the swamp.” He NEVER meant it. And the Democrats (apart from a very few like Bernie Sanders, Marianne Williamson, Nina Turner, Zohran Mamdani, and Omar Fateh) like to speak the talk of “hope and change” but are far too beholden to their corporate donors to enact the transformative politics that this moment calls for. Butch agrees; that’s why he’s running as a Green in the race for California governor. According to Butch, BOTH parties of the corporatist/oligarchic duopoly (“Team Blue Genocide and Team Red Fascism,” as he likes to say) need to be ultimately abandoned.

So, Butch Ware and others are saying that electoral politics ALONE and peaceful protests ALONE are not going to get us to the place we need to be; are not ALONE going to defeat fascism. Elections can be rigged, and protest movements can be co-opted and/or crushed. This doesn’t mean we have to resort to violence, though for some it might be an appealing option. History, as journalist and author Chris Hedges reminds us, shows that “most revolutions succeed not through violence but through national strikes – the ability to essentially shut the country down.” From my knowledge and reading of Butch, I’m pretty sure he would agree with Hedges.

Related Off-site Link:
Man Killed in Minneapolis by Federal Agents Identified as VA Nurse Alex Pretti: “He Wanted to Help People” – Melody Schreiber (The Guardian, January 24, 2026).
Pain, Anger, Action in Twin Cities After a Second Fatal Shooting by a Federal Agent – Hannah Ihekoronye (Minnesota Public Radio News, January 24, 2026).
Alex Pretti Remembered as Kind, Competent and Quiet – MPR News (January 24, 2026).
Video Contradicts Department of Homeland Security Claims About Killing of Alex Pretti – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 24, 2026).
Vigils Across Minnesota Remember Alex Pretti – MPR News (January 24, 2025).
As “Loyal Agents of Nazis” in GOP Murder Citizens, U.S. Is at “Turning Point,” Advocates Say – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 25, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:

THE STRATEGY OF THE GENERAL STRIKE
• “Most Revolutions Succeed Not Through Violence But Through National Strikes”
• Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – January 12, 2026
• General Strike for Peace (2007)

THE MINNESOTAN RESISTANCE TO TRUMP’S FASCIST OCCUPATION
• Omar Fateh: Quote of the Day – December 4, 2025
• Photo of the Day – December 5, 2025
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Doing What We Can to Stop Unjust Arrests of Immigrants
• Great Event, Great Sign, Great Nails
• Christmas Eve Musings
• May We Do Likewise
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like” – January 7, 2026
• “It Was Murder”: 12 Powerful Responses to the Death of Renée Nicole Good
• Omar Fateh: “Folks Are Waking Up”
• A Good Faith Appeal and a Grim Response
• Why Minnesota?
• Chris Hedges on ICE: “I Have Seen These Masked Goons Before”
• Steven Donziger: “Let’s Get Real . . . ICE Is a Domestic Terrorist Organization”
• Historian Kyle Dekker: “It’s Not Nazi Ideology We Are Fighting. It’s American”
• Knowing Our Rights
• Mike Figueredo on Why Trump Might Be Pushing the U.S. to the Brink of Collapse
• Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Marianne Williamson on How to Psychologically Endure This Moment
• What Moral Clarity Looks Like in Minnesota This MLK Day
• Nemik’s Eulogy for Renée Nicole Good
• “It Was Never About Keeping America Safe”
• “ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26
• “This Was a Flat Out Execution”

BUTCH WARE
• Introducing California’s Gubernatorial Candidate Butch Ware
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – June 5, 2025
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• “The Moment Is Ripe”: Butch Ware on Building a “True Oppositional Alternative” to the Duopoly
• Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
• The Green Party’s Jill Stein and Butch Ware Give Their First Post-Election Interview
• “This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”: Butch Ware on the Gaza Genocide
• Green Party Vice Presidential Candidate Butch Ware in Minneapolis
• Butch Ware: “You Can Actually Vote Your Conscience”
• Butch Ware: “I’m Not Here as a Spoiler”

THE RISE OF FASCISM IN THE U.S.
• James Greenberg: “I Am in Mourning for America”
• An Incident That Feels “Ripped from a Dystopian Novel”
• The “Creeping Fascism of Trump’s America”: A View from Australia
• Will Potter on Trump’s War on Dissent: “This Is What Fascists Do”
• Derek Johnson on the “Courage to Call Fascism by Its Name”
• Jason Duchin: Quote of the Day – September 24, 2025
• Staying Strong in Trump’s Fascist America
• James Greenberg on the Identity Politics of MAGA
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like in Practice”
• Garrett Graff: “America Tips Into Fascism”
• Marianne Williamson: “We’re Moving Into Totalitarianism”
• “It’s Here, and We Are Sleepwalking Through It”
• Khalil Gibran Muhammad on Donald Trump’s Militarization of Law Enforcement
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 20, 2025

THE FAILURES OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY
• Mike Figueredo on the “Political Malpractice” of the Democratic Party
• Ted Rall: Democrats Are Not “the Left”
• Exposing the Dark Money Network Secretly Funding Establishment Democratic Influencers
• Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’s Book, 107 Days
• Why the Democratic Party Is Not Going to Save Us From Fascism
• Howie Hawkins: “The Democrats Are Not the Answer to the Trump/Fascism Problem”
• The Longstanding Fault Lines Within the Democratic Party Have Surfaced Again in Minnesota
• Jeff Cohen on How Obama’s “Corporate Liberalism” Led to the Rise of Trump
• Progressive Perspectives on Bernie Sanders’ “Fighting Oligarchy” Tour
• Eric Fernández: Quote of the Day – May 14, 2025
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2025
• How Democrats Can Start Winning Again

SIGNS OF HOPE
• “No Kings”? Absolutely. But Also “No Oligarchy”
• Chris Smalls: We Need to Escape the “Two-Party Plantation”
• Kshama Sawant: Independent Working-class Campaigns Can Succeed
• The Rational National’s Take on Zohran Mamdani
• Omar Fateh: “We Need to Meet the Needs of Working People”
• Something to Think About – July 25, 2025
• In His Efforts to “Build a City That Works for All,” Omar Fateh Secures a Key Endorsement
• Butch Ware on His Run for California Governor and the Wider Goal of Disrupting the Duopoly
• Marianne Williamson on the Need for “Radical Love” in Responding to Trump’s Dismantling of Democracy
• “Protesting Is What Patriotism Looks Like in Public”

“This Was a Flat Out Execution”

ICE murdered another person in my district this morning. This was a flat out execution. Horrific and absolutely on the hands of these untrained, untamed agents.

Every single one must be held accountable for their actions. We can no longer allow them to continue on their spree .

– MN State Sen. Omar Fateh
via social media
January 24, 2025

Related Off-site Link:
Fatal Shooting by Federal Immigration Agents Reported in Minneapolis – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 24, 2026).

UPDATES: Man Killed in Minneapolis by Federal Agents Identified as VA Nurse Alex Pretti: “He Wanted to Help People” – Melody Schreiber (The Guardian, January 24, 2026).
Pain, Anger, Action in Twin Cities After a Second Fatal Shooting by a Federal Agent – Hannah Ihekoronye (Minnesota Public Radio News, January 24, 2026).
Alex Pretti Remembered as Kind, Competent and Quiet – MPR News (January 24, 2026).
Video Contradicts Department of Homeland Security Claims About Killing of Alex Pretti – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 24, 2026).
Vigils Across Minnesota Remember Alex Pretti – MPR News (January 24, 2025).
As “Loyal Agents of Nazis” in GOP Murder Citizens, U.S. Is at “Turning Point,” Advocates Say – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 25, 2026).
Judge Grants Order Barring Feds from Altering or Destroying Evidence in Pretti Shooting – Andrew Krueger (MPR News, January 25, 2026).
“Please Get the Truth Out,” Alex Pretti’s Parents Plead as Trump Officials Baselessly Smear Shooting Victim – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, January 25, 2026).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts on the resistance to the Trump regime’s fascist occupation of Minnesota:
• Omar Fateh: Quote of the Day – December 4, 2025
• Photo of the Day – December 5, 2025
• Susie Hayward on What’s Happening in Minneapolis
• Doing What We Can to Stop Unjust Arrests of Immigrants
• Great Event, Great Sign, Great Nails
• Christmas Eve Musings
• May We Do Likewise
• “This Is What Fascism Looks Like” – January 7, 2026
• “It Was Murder”: 12 Powerful Responses to the Death of Renée Nicole Good
• Omar Fateh: “Folks Are Waking Up”
• A Good Faith Appeal and a Grim Response
• Why Minnesota?
• Chris Hedges on ICE: “I Have Seen These Masked Goons Before”
• Steven Donziger: “Let’s Get Real . . . ICE Is a Domestic Terrorist Organization”
• Historian Kyle Dekker: “It’s Not Nazi Ideology We Are Fighting. It’s American”
• Knowing Our Rights
• Mike Figueredo on Why Trump Might Be Pushing the U.S. to the Brink of Collapse
• Dispatches from Occupied Minnesota
• Marianne Williamson on How to Psychologically Endure This Moment
• What Moral Clarity Looks Like in Minnesota This MLK Day
• Nemik’s Eulogy for Renée Nicole Good
• “It Was Never About Keeping America Safe”
• “ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26

Image 1: A phone screenshot showing the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by ICE agents – Minneapolis, January 24, 2026.
Image 2: People mourn at a makeshift memorial in the area where Alex Pretti was shot dead by federal immigration agents earlier in the day in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)

Friday, January 23, 2026

“ICE Out!”: The Minnesota General Strike – 1/23/26

As most reading this would know, the state of Minnesota, the place I’ve called my second home for the last 32 years, is under occupation by ICE agents of the U.S. federal government. Specifically, with the deployment of over 3,000 ICE agents to Minnesota in recent weeks, mostly in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, this is the Trump regime’s largest and most violent so-called “immigration enforcement operation” to date. Not surprisingly, residents – immigrant and U.S.-born alike – are living with great uncertainty and fear. But we are also embodying courage and resistance.

Indeed, as a recent meme puts it: “We’re not ‘protesting’ here in Minneapolis. We’re resisting an occupation.”

One powerful form of resistance is taking place today, Friday, January 23. Organized by unions, faith leaders, community organizations, and small businesses, today’s action of resistance is a general strike, a statewide day of no work except emergency services, no school, and no shopping. The demand of this strike is clear and direct: “ICE Out of Minnesota.”

Right: I bought this t-shirt online especially for today; not that anyone saw it as I had so many layers of clothing over the top of it! . . . It was, after all, -20 degrees in the Twin Cities today. The image of the black cat has long been a symbol of strike action, as I explain at the end of this Wild Reed post.

In addition to a general strike, today saw two major rallies and marches in Minneapolis – one this morning at the Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport and one later in the day in downtown Minneapolis. I attended the first event, one which drew around 5,000 people and saw dozens of clergy members choose to engage in civil disobedience and get arrested. The second event drew 50,000-75,000 people. Both events took place in sub-zero temperatures, on the coldest day in Minnesota in seven years.

Following are images and commentary on today’s general strike and its two main events in Minneapolis. The following 12 photos from this morning’s action at the airport are mine. All other photos – of both the airport and downtown Minneapolis events – are ones I pulled from the Internet.

In -20° weather, over 100 clergy and faith leaders were arrested at Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport (MSP) Airport as they gathered in peaceful, prayerful resistance to demand airlines – especially Delta and Signature Aviation – stand with Minnesotans and say “ICE Out of Minnesota.” Over 2,000 deportations have gone through MSP Airport. Workers have been detained by ICE at work and while commuting. This must end.

– Faith in Minnesota
via social media
January 23, 2026

Today I stood in -20 degree temperature to bear witness and stand alongside interfaith leaders and community members united together in solidarity to demand that ICE stop terrorizing Minnesota. While it was painful to see interfaith leaders being arrested for peacefully protesting, I am grateful that I bore witness to this moment in history. I was struck by three things that I want to share with you all.

1. People are traumatized but they are not paralyzed. A community that has endured so much violence and loss, yet Minnesotans continue to lead with joy and humanity more than anything else. It is deeply inspiring.

2. These are American tax dollars that could be spent on the critical necessities that our communities are actually in need of. Americans need housing, food, shelter, clothing, healthcare. But instead, our tax dollars are being wasted on a police state.

3. Minnesota is showing what all of us could be doing as organizers nationally. If leaders all around the country can manage to organize together and actually stand up to these ICE fascists, then we could have a meaningful chance — in fact, I believe a probability — of stopping them. It’s important to learn from what these community members are doing in Minnesota and lead by example within our own communities around the nation and push back.

I’d also like to take note that the majority of leaders here today at Minneapolis/St. Paul Airport putting themselves out on the line, getting arrested, were white faith leaders. This is what using your white privilege looks like to protect your neighbors of all faiths and all colors and backgrounds.

– Qasim Rashid
via social media
January 23, 2026

Twin Cities residents are weeks into the Trump administration’s deployment of thousands of federal immigration agents in an operation that has seen a legal observer and young mother fatally shot; U.S. citizens dragged out of their homes and vehicles by masked officers; one of President Donald Trump’s top Border Patrol officials lobbing a gas grenade at lawful protesters; children as young as two detained; and armed agents seemingly lurking around every corner.

But the trauma inflicted on the Cities during “Operation Metro Surge” appeared only to have strengthened residents’ resolve to push U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) out of Minnesota on Friday as residents filled the Minneapolis downtown area to march in sub-freezing temperatures and assembled at a nearby airport through which an estimated 2,000 people have been deported.

The demonstrations were part of a “no work, no school, no shopping” general strike that labor, faith, and community leaders and businesses have joined in calling for in recent days as outrage has grown over ICE’s arrests of immigrants and citizens alike and attacks on residents’ First Amendment rights.

Demonstrators carried signs reading, “ICE Out Now,” “Stop Pretending Racism Is Patriotism,” and “Stop Disappearing Our Neighbors.”

Businesses and cultural institutions were closed in solidarity across the city and the state on Friday; Truthout reported that about 700 businesses shut their doors across Minnesota, while businesses that remained open planned to donate their proceeds from the day to immigrant rights groups.

Organizers said about 100 clergy members were arrested at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport protest. They were among the protesters who blocked the road at a departures terminal, singing, “Before this campaign fails / We’ll all go down to jail / Everybody has a right to live.”

According to union leaders, 12 airport workers are among the Minneapolis-area residents who have been detained by ICE in recent weeks.

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minnesota Regional Labor Federation (MRLF), AFL-CIO, acknowledged that the weather on Friday was "dangerously cold."

“Negative 10°F with wind chills. Like the high is going to be -10°F with wind chills of up to -20°F,” Glaubitz Gabiou told The Guardian. “We are a northern state, and we are built for the cold, and we are going to show up.”

Organizers said the goals of the general strike were for ICE to leave Minnesota, the ICE agent who killed Renée Good earlier this month to be held legally accountable, and no additional federal funding for ICE operations.

Seven U.S. House Democrats joined the Republican Party in passing a funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security this week. The legislation still needs to get through the Senate.

Nationwide, data has shown that nearly three-quarters of people arrested by ICE have had no criminal convictions, but the Trump administration has continued to claim it is detaining the “worst of the worst” violent criminals, even as agents have clearly been shown arresting people who are authorized to be in the U.S. and have no criminal records.

– Julia Conley
“Undeterred by Freezing Temps,
Statewide Minnesota Strikes Demand ‘ICE Out Now’”
Common Dreams
January 23, 2026

Right now in Minneapolis, ordinary people have become extraordinary defenders of freedom and human dignity. From businesses voluntarily closing their doors in solidarity, to faith leaders standing shoulder-to-shoulder with neighbors on the streets, to workers and students coordinating an economic strike we are watching meaningful collective resistance in its purest form. Minnesotans are loudly saying ICE, get the fuck out of Minnesota. No more brutality in our communities.

ICE isn’t about law and order. It’s about cruelty, intimidation, and unchecked force being wielded against our friends and neighbors. It’s about an administration that has deployed thousands of agents into our communities to wage a campaign of terror and retribution. They have beaten people, murdered people, and ripped apart families. They are a monstrous horde of ghouls who delight in inflicting pain.

To Trump, Vance, Miller, every operative in that federal enforcement machine, and every individual who supports these tactics, hear this clearly:

Fuck your intimidation.

Fuck your agenda of fear and exclusion.

Fuck your attempt to remake this country in the image of white Christian nationalist domination.

Minnesota has answered with unity, resistance, and defiance. This is what it means to refuse fear and stand for justice. Let this be a moment where we all learn from Minnesota’s resolve. Let’s be prepared to carry that resolve into our own communities. With the unshakeable belief that a better America is still possible – an America that rejects cruelty, rejects white supremacy, celebrates diversity, and honors human rights for everybody.

Stand tall. Stand together. We are far better than the hatred and division being fed us by that petulant narcissist Trump and his horde of white supremacist henchmen.

– Jason Duchin
via social media
January 23, 2026

I’m not one for false optimism. But what I witnessed today in Minneapolis was tremendous, both in scale and exuberance. It was a stunning answer to the federal assault on Minnesota, a show of solidarity that gives us something to hold onto during times that are unforgiving.

There were an estimated 50,000 people marching in the streets to support an economic shutdown, in temperatures so cold your tears freeze to your face and exposed skin is in danger of frostbite. That was preceded by pickets, civil disobedience, and arrests. All day, people have been passing around hand warmers, chanting LOUD, carrying home-made signs, and helping people who became physically overwhelmed by the cold.

It’s too early to assess exactly how many workers stayed out, but I saw teachers, electricians, and food service workers. I talked to one airport worker who kept saying "Oh, my god" because this was so much bigger than she was expecting. She said a lot of her co-workers called in sick.

Minnesota unions really fought for this. That’s an important thing for people to know. There is a coalition here of unions and community groups, rooted in a deep history that goes back to the general strike of 1934, but also organizing against Target, and aligning union contract expirations more recently.

Unions were out. Minnesotans were out. Immigrants were out. Neighbors were out. Rapid responders were out. People who were scared were out. Even kids were out. And it’s still going!