ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA — Friday is the busiest day at the 620 Club, a buzzing bar known for its coney dogs, jukebox and billiards. But this Friday, it is among hundreds of businesses in the Twin Cities that are closed in an economic protest of the Trump administration’s immigration operations in Minnesota.
The goal of the protest, said 620 Club co-owner Ruth Kashmark, is to demonstrate that “this is what the world’s going to look like if you take our hard-working neighbors away.”
Immigrant-run businesses just blocks away have been hit hard by ICE activity, with one shutting down and others locking their doors and reducing work hours, Kashmark said.
“This is hurting small businesses,” she said. “I don’t have any immigrant employees. So I’m not even feeling it like other businesses, but I thought I’d shut down for one day to show solidarity. We’ll take the loss.”
Organizers of the action, dubbed ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom, have called for residents to boycott work, school and shopping. Faith leaders, labor unions and business leaders have joined to promote the general strike, amid continuing tensions over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions in the state, including the fatal shooting of Renée Good by an ICE officer.
Protesters gathered at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport’s Terminal 1 on Friday morning to call attention to deportation flights that have used the airport, the Minnesota Star-Tribune reported. A march is planned for 2 p.m. in Minneapolis, where the National Weather Service warned of minus-50 degree wind chill through Sunday morning.
At Red Balloon Bookshop, a children’s bookstore in St. Paul, staff voted unanimously to shut down for the day.
“We just felt that it was really important to show, despite any financial issues that will crop up, that we wanted to show our solidarity,” said Mallory Hayes, a store manager. The shop has been handing out free whistles to alert neighbors about ICE activity and “know your rights” cards in Somali, Hmong and Spanish.
Across the river in Minneapolis, Temple Israel synagogue was filled Friday morning with clergy, elected leaders and others for an interfaith service to launch the day of striking, marching and activism.
Marcia Zimmerman, senior rabbi, opened by saying the diversity and differences of activists in Minneapolis “is our strength.”
The crowd later erupted in applause as Zimmerman declared that “history is on our side,” before lighting a candle in the synagogue’s sanctuary of remembrance for Good and people who have died in federal detention.
Washington’s Episcopal bishop, Mariann Budde, a longtime former Minneapolis priest and prominent critic of President Donald Trump, promised the synagogue Friday morning that she would bring the story of the city’s crackdown back to D.C.
“What I and others can do is connect the dots, between the scale and deliberate cruelty here with what has been taking place across the country and increasingly being given free license and enormous funding from the federal government,” she said. “Minneapolis has shown the country what it looks like to stand up.”
The strike and march come during the third week of tension in Minneapolis since Jan. 7, when Good was shot. In recent days, federal prosecutors subpoenaed the Minnesota governor and other officials, all Democrats; a 5-year-old was detained with his father in their driveway in a Minneapolis suburb; and the federal government arrested three activists in connection with a protest that disrupted a Sunday morning church service.
During a visit to the city Thursday, Vice President JD Vance — who had previously accused local leaders of stonewalling the federal deployment — said Trump had urged him to work with local leaders to “turn down the chaos a little bit, at least.”
Thousands of Minnesota residents, including many who do not normally identify as activists, have protested the federal government’s actions in the weeks since the Department of Homeland Security sent agents into the Twin Cities area with the stated mission of removing undocumented immigrants.
Residents and officials in Minnesota say federal agents have gone far beyond that brief, detaining U.S. citizens, pulling people from their cars, appearing to stop people on the basis of race, and using chemical irritants on people demonstrating against or monitoring their work.
Kimberly Case, 64, a Minneapolis native and retiree, braved the 4-degree snowstorm to protest outside the Vance event Thursday. Chase said she had been unable to stomach the fact that her niece and her classmates had been talking about digging a hole in their schoolyard to hide from ICE agents who might come to their school.
“We’re being invaded at all levels of society from kids to old people,” said Chase, who wore a battery-heated vest to fight the chill. “But it’s not working. If anything it’s making our community tighter.”
Several court challenges to the Trump administration’s actions are now before federal judges. A federal judge in one suit last week barred DHS agents from arresting peaceful protesters, but this week an appeals court temporarily lifted that restriction while the litigation continues.
After the ICE officer killed Good this month, angry residents began protesting and the administration sent more federal agents to Minnesota, escalating tensions. A week later, on Jan. 14, an ICE officer shot 24-year-old Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis in the leg before arresting him and two other undocumented men at their home.
The Trump administration has defended its work as arresting criminals it calls dangerous and has characterized opposed residents as agitators getting in the way of the work of law enforcement.
“The fact that those groups want to shut down Minnesota’s economy, which provides law-abiding American citizens an honest living, to fight for illegal alien murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, drug dealers, and terrorists says everything you need to know,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement to The Post on the general strike.
On X this week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem claimed without providing evidence that the agency had arrested more than 10,000 undocumented immigrants in Minneapolis. The Post was unable to verify Noem’s number.
“Over the weekend in Minneapolis, the heroes of @ICEgov arrested more murderers, rapists, gang members, and perpetrators of fraud. A huge victory for public safety,” Noem posted Tuesday.
JaNaé Bates Imari, auxiliary minister at Camphor Memorial United Methodist Church in St. Paul, said that the way federal agents have operated has been dangerous and harmful to residents.
“We cannot allow this to continue,” she said at a Jan. 13 news conference announcing Friday’s action. “If you ever wondered for yourself, when is the time that we do something different, ‘When is the time that we stand up?’ … The time is now.”
Prayer vigils were planned across the state for Friday morning. Some coffee shops planned to open without doing business to provide spaces for march attendees and ICE observers to warm up, offering free coffee and sign-making materials. One brewery planned to provide free hot dogs all day.
Other businesses said on social media that they would stay open out of consideration for employees’ wages but would donate a portion of their revenue to community nonprofits.
This article will be updated. McDaniel, Allison and Boorstein reported from Washington.
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