Minneapolis — A broad network of labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy urged Minnesotans to stay away from work, schools and stores on Friday to protest enforcement of the state’s immigration laws.
“We really want ICE to leave Minnesota, and they won’t leave Minnesota unless there’s a lot of pressure on them,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of more than 100 groups mobilizing. “They should not be roaming any streets in our country as they are now.”
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen daily protests since Rene Judd was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer during an operation on January 7. Federal law enforcement officers have been deployed in the area for weeks and have repeatedly clashed with community members and activists tracking their movements online and in the streets.
On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people were arrested for participating in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted Sunday services at a Minnesota church.
Vice President J.D. Vance visited Minneapolis to meet with ICE officials. He has repeatedly said he believes the charged situation in Minneapolis would improve if state and local officials cooperated better, and he encouraged the protests to remain peaceful.
Friday’s rally was planned to be the largest coordinated protest action yet, including a march through downtown Minneapolis despite dangerously cold temperatures predicted by the National Weather Service in single digits below zero (-20 to -30 degrees Celsius).
While the organizations asked participants to prepare for the cold, Havlin compared the presence of immigration enforcement to such winter weather warnings.
“Minnesotans realize that when we’re in a snow emergency, we all have to respond, and that makes us do things differently,” she said. “And what’s happening with ICE in our community, in our state, means we can’t respond as usual.”
More than a hundred small businesses in the Twin Cities, most of them cafes and restaurants, said they would close their doors in solidarity or donate a portion of their profits, organizers said.
Ethnic businesses in particular lost sales during increases in law enforcement, as workers and customers stayed away for fear of being detained.
But some decide to close anyway, preferring to take a stand in solidarity rather than the “unscheduled boycott” of agents arresting employees, said Luis Argueta of the civil rights group Unidos MN.
Many schools were planning to close for various reasons. The University of Minnesota, which has about 50,000 students, said there would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold warning, and the St. Paul Public School District said there would be no classes for the same reason. Minneapolis Public Schools were also scheduled to close Friday for “Teacher Records Day.”
Clergy intend to join the march as well as hold prayers and fasts, according to a delegation of representatives of religious traditions ranging from Buddhism, Judaism, Lutheranism and Muslim.
Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organization Faith in Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, D.C.
“We want ICE out of Minnesota,” he said. “We want them out of all the cities across the country where they are engaging in extreme abuse.”
Royster said at least 50 of his network’s religious organizers from across the United States joined the protest.
An organizer there said about 10 religious leaders were planning to travel to Minnesota from Los Angeles while others from the same group planned a solidarity march in California.
“It was a very horrific experience,” the Rev. Jennifer Gutierrez of the Big Law Enforcement Operation in Los Angeles said last year. “We believe that God is on the side of immigrants.”
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.