Activists are calling for a nationwide shutdown on Friday, advocating \u201cno work, no school, no shopping\u201d in a protest against the Trump administration\u2019s sweeping immigration crackdowns.<\/p>\n
Organizers say Friday\u2019s \u201cblackout\u201d \u2013 or general strike, as some are calling it \u2013 is part of a growing non-violent movement to combat ICE\u2019s aggressive enforcement tactics, which have come under renewed scrutiny following a series of fatal shootings involving federal agents.<\/p>\n
Those deaths include Renee Good<\/a> and Alex Pretti<\/a> in Minneapolis, Keith Porter<\/a> in Los Angeles, and Silverio Villegas Gonz\u00e1lez<\/a> in Illinois. Friday\u2019s national protest leaders, many of them students at the University of Minnesota, are calling for ICE to leave the city after its nearly month-long operation. They say economic pressure through work stoppages and consumer boycotts is just one way to demand accountability and reform.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are calling for this strike because we believe what we have been doing in Minnesota<\/a> should go national,\u201d said Kidus Yeshidagna, president of the Ethiopian Students Union at the University of Minnesota and one of the students organizing the strike.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need more people and lawmakers across the country to wake up.\u201d<\/p>\n Yeshidagna is part of a coalition of student groups that organized the Minnesota shutdown last Friday, in which thousands of people flooded the streets in sub-zero temperatures and hundreds of businesses shut their doors to demand justice for Good, who was shot by an ICE agent while trying to protect a neighbor. Last weekend, agents killed Pretti, another resident who was observing agents\u2019 activities.<\/p>\n The student groups \u2013 including the associations representing Black, Somali, Liberian, Ethiopian and Eritrean students and the graduate labor union \u2013 first gathered on 21 January to plan the calls for local and national strikes. \u201cWe came out in huge numbers despite the cold,\u201d he said, referencing last week\u2019s actions. \u201cWe are now doing it again.\u201d<\/p>\n From restaurants and clothing retailers to bookstores and coffee shops, businesses across dozens of cities have announced that they are closed.<\/p>\n Protesters in Philadelphia, New York, Boise and Columbus are gathering at city halls, courthouses, statehouses and legislative buildings, according to an action tracker<\/a>. Students at high schools and colleges in Florida, California and other states are staging walkouts.<\/p>\n In Milwaukee and in Buffalo, Wyoming, people are gathering at parks and on street corners. Some protesters, including those in Washington DC, are gathering outside Target stores. After ICE violently detained two Target employees in Richfield, Minnesota, activists have increased calls<\/a> to sustain the boycott on the retail giant.<\/p>\n Support for the strike has grown throughout the week. The neighbors and family members of Good and Pretti contacted the student organizations to share their support for the protests, Yeshidagna told the Guardian. Hundreds of organizations, including student groups in other states, unions, and major organizing groups, including 50501, have thrown their support behind the action.<\/p>\n \u201cWe want to obstruct the pillars that are upholding the Trump administration,\u201d Gloriann Sahay, a national coordinator with 50501, told the Guardian. \u201cBy showing up, we are showing we are more in number and that we are not afraid of this terror being reigned down upon us.\u201d<\/p>\n