Demonstrators march in the freezing cold to protest the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant policies and demand that ICE be removed from the city.
Thousands of demonstrators braved the bitter cold to march through the streets of the US city of Minneapolis, demanding an end to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the city.
Friday’s march began in temperatures as low as -29 degrees Celsius (-20 degrees Fahrenheit), with organizers saying as many as 50,000 people took to the streets, although this figure could not be independently verified.
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Many protesters then gathered inside Target Center, a sports arena that seats 20,000 people.
Organizers and participants said dozens of businesses across Minnesota closed for the day as part of “ICE OUT!” A statement of defiance that organizers called a general strike.
Workers took to the streets to protest and march, sparking weeks of sometimes violent clashes between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and demonstrators opposed to President Trump’s move.
“It’s -23 degrees, stores are closed, and protesters are braving the coldest temperatures on record since 2019 to send a simple message to ICE: Get out,” Al Jazeera’s John Hendren said in an interview from Minneapolis.
Just the day before, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance visited Minneapolis to express support for ICE officers, urge local leaders and activists to de-escalate tensions, and say ICE is carrying out its important mission of detaining immigration violators.
In one of the most dramatic protests, local police arrested dozens of clergy who were singing hymns and kneeling in prayer on the streets of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport, calling on President Trump to withdraw the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers sent to the area.
Organizers said their demands also include legal liability for the ICE officer who shot and killed American citizen Renee Goode in her car while monitoring ICE operations this month.
They ignored orders from local police officers to clear the road and arrested dozens of demonstrators without resisting, zip-tied them and loaded them onto buses.
Organizers said about 100 priests were arrested.
“The biggest strike”
Faith in Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that helped organize the protest, said the clergy also urged caution among airport and airline employees who say they were detained by ICE while on the job. The group called on airlines to “stand with Minnesotans in demanding that ICE immediately end the surge in our state.”
Bars, restaurants and shops across the state were closed for the day, organizers said, in what was expected to be the largest demonstration yet of opposition to the federal violence.
“Make no mistake about it: We are facing full federal occupation by the U.S. government through the ICE division on unceded land in the Dakotas,” said Rachel Dionne Sander, vice president of the Native American Movement.
She was one of a number of indigenous, religious, labor and community leaders to speak and call on ICE to withdraw and thoroughly investigate the shooting of Goode.
Republican Trump was elected in 2024 primarily on the promise of enforcing immigration laws, while also saying that his predecessor, Democratic President Joe Biden, had too lax border security and pledging to crack down on violent criminals.
But President Trump’s aggressive deployment of federal law enforcement to Democratic-led cities and states has further fueled political polarization in the United States, especially since the Good shooting, the arrest of Americans who were taken from their homes in their underwear, and the detention of school children, including a 5-year-old boy.
Numerous Fortune 500 companies based in Minnesota have declined to make public statements regarding the immigration raids.
