NYC: All Out Against ICE and in Solidarity with Minnesota

This Friday, January 23, unions and organizations across Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, are taking part in a call to disrupt business as usual through a Day of No Work, No School, and No Shopping. The action demands justice for Renee Nicole Good and calls for ICE out of Minnesota’s cities.

This call emerges from weeks of growing resistance: mass protests; community members following ICE vehicles to warn neighbors and document arrests; noise demonstrations at hotels where ICE agents are housed; and mutual aid efforts supporting immigrant workers who cannot risk going to work or school. These initiatives have now coalesced into a call to action that places the working class —and its unions — at the center of the struggle.

The mobilization, called for 2:00 p.m., is endorsed by Service Employees Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, Communications Workers Local 7250, St. Paul Federation of Educators Local 28, Minneapolis Federation of Educators (AFT Local 59), IATSE Local 13, the Graduate Labor Union, United Electrical Workers Local 1105 at the University of Minnesota, ATU Local 1005, the Committee of Interns and Residents (SEIU), the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, and the AFL-CIO.

Minnesota is the epicenter of the fight against ICE, and the scale of this response is being closely watched nationwide. The day of action in the Twin Cities is an important step forward, but to actually be able to shut it down, unions must move toward concrete strike action. To give real force to the call for “no work,” labor must mobilize the collective power of rank-and-file workers. While individual acts of participation are important, unions must go further than symbolic endorsements. 

Friday’s actions in New York City are part of an effort to stand together with the people of Minnesota and to nationalize the struggle against ICE. In NYC, a rally and mobilization are being organized targeting corporations that collaborate with or profit from ICE, including Amazon, Palantir, and Home Depot. The action is being organized by UFT, PSC-CUNY, Teamsters, SEIU Locals 1199 and 32BJ, RSWD, UAW Region 9A, DSA, Hands Off, and other organizations. 

This call is also happening as New York witnesses the largest nurses strike ever. The working class is here to stay.

As Left Voice writer, Ximena Goldman explains:

The call to halt work, school, and commerce on January 23 is an opportunity to take the initiative and begin forging the unity needed to confront these attacks. For this struggle to deepen, spread, and endure — and to become capable of defeating the Trump administration’s offensive against workers in the U.S. and internationally, from Iran to Venezuela — it requires the active participation of the labor movement and a break with its current passivity.

The racism and chauvinism that lead Trump to treat Latin America as a backyard for U.S. profits are the same forces militarizing our neighborhoods at home. His agenda depends on terrorizing immigrant communities and criminalizing resistance—whether through imperialist aggression abroad or repression against those defending their neighbors here.

This struggle is inseparable from the fight against U.S. imperialism. As the U.S. escalates its aggression against Venezuela and the rest of Latin America, we have mobilized under a clear demand: US Imperialism Hands Off Latin America and ICE Hands Off Our Cities.

From the attacks on immigrants and democratic rights here at home, to his brutal imperialist offensive abroad — including the recent bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, Trump has shown us, a year into his second term, on how he plans to govern. We cannot rely on Congress or the courts, or hold out hope for a better administrator of this imperialist system. The only force capable of checking this power is that of the organized working class, acting independently of the two parties of capital.

The Left in New York City has to create a pole of class independence that provides a space of reference for all those who want to fight against Trump and ICE but don’t trust in the Democratic Party to be its alternative. Political and organizational independence is necessary if we are to expand this struggle and fight alongside our class siblings across borders against Trump’s renewed imperial ambitions.

More than ever, we need unity in action and political independence from the capitalist parties to confront Trump and his agenda now. With this perspective, Left Voice will mobilize alongside other socialists as well as workers, unions, students, non-profits, and those who want to fight the Far Right. Find us in Union Square at 4 p.m. on Friday, January 23.