Activists are urging a “nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping” throughout the U.S. on Friday, Jan. 30, to demonstrate against President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown after federal agents fatally shot two individuals in Minneapolis.
“The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country – to stop [Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s] reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN,” the for the National Shutdown campaign reads.
Thousands of Minnesotans marched through the streets and hundreds of businesses closed last Friday in a comparable general strike demanding an end to in the state after an ICE officer shot 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good earlier in the month. One day after the large demonstration, another Minneapolis resident, 37-year-old VA nurse , was killed by federal agents.
Organizers of the upcoming nationwide strike highlighted the widespread “shock” and “outrage” over the two recent shootings in Minneapolis, as well as those of in a Chicago suburb and in Los Angeles last year. Porter, a 43-year-old father of two, was killed by an off-duty ICE officer on New Year’s Eve. González, also a father of two and originally from Mexico, was fatally shot by an ICE agent in September. He was 38.
The Trump Administration has insisted that federal agents acted in self-defense in each shooting. However, both Democrats and have expressed concerns following the recent killings in Minneapolis, which have sparked protests nationwide.
“While Trump and other right-wing politicians are slandering them as ‘terrorists’, the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt: they were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation,” the National Shutdown website asserts.
Who has called for the strike?
The nationwide general strike call has originated from a decentralized movement spanning multiple major cities, from Minneapolis to Cleveland to New York City. Organizers are urging people to refrain from work, school, and commerce to protest immigration enforcement and the recent shootings.
The National Shutdown website lists local and national partners including the Defend Immigrant Families Campaign, the Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR), the North Carolina Poor People’s Campaign, the LA Tenants Union, and multiple student organizations at the University of Minnesota, while large activist groups like have also pledged to join.
Several actors and other celebrities have joined in and called for the public to participate in the strike, including The Last of Us actor , Hacks‘s , Edward Norton, and Oscar-winner Jamie Lee Curtis.
Many of these actors posted on Instagram and social media to spread news of the strike, including Pascal.
“Truth is a line of demarcation between a democratic government and authoritarian regime,” Pascal wrote in the caption of a post about the strike, one of several he has recently made denouncing ICE and federal immigration agents’ actions.
“What they’re doing in Minnesota with the strike needs to expand,” Norton told the while at the Sundance Film Festival. “We should be talking about a national general economic strike until this is over.”
How successful was Minnesota’s walkout?
Despite a reported negative-20 degree temperature in Minneapolis and preparations for an incoming snowstorm, photographs from Minnesota’s strike on Jan. 23 showed tens of thousands of people marching en masse. More than 700 businesses were closed during the day-long protests, with support from dozens of labor unions across the state.
Dozens of clergy members sang hymns and prayers while kneeling on the road outside the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, calling for Trump to withdraw the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers sent to the area as part of the so-called “Operation Metro Surge.” Approximately 100 clergy members who participated in the demonstration were arrested.
Beyond businesses, several cultural institutions in the Twin Cities also closed, including the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Minnesota Children’s Museum.
Bernie Burnham, president of Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s federation of more than 1,000 affiliated local unions, said in a statement ahead of the mass walkout that members of the union would join with our fellow Minnesotans to reject fear and speak with one voice as we call for ICE to leave our state, no additional funding for ICE, legal accountability for ICE’s killing of Renee Good, and for Minnesota’s large corporations to stop cooperating with ICE.”
