How a 3,000-Agent Operation in Minneapolis Sparked the First General Strike Since 1946

Last updated 4 months ago. Our resources are updated regularly but please keep in mind that links, programs, policies, and contact information do change.

Two Americans are dead, shot by federal immigration agents during what the Trump administration calls the largest operation of its kind in history. The deaths—one in early January, another weeks later—triggered something extraordinary. Tens of thousands of people took to Minneapolis streets in subzero temperatures. Hundreds of small businesses voluntarily shuttered their doors. Labor unions called for an economic blackout that organizers describe as the first general strike on American soil in eighty years.

What unfolded in Minneapolis beginning in December 2025 represents an unprecedented deployment of federal immigration agents. More than 3,000 personnel from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection converged on the Twin Cities as part of Operation Metro Surge. The operation killed two U.S. citizens who weren’t enforcement targets: a mother observing ICE activity and a nurse attempting to help a detained person.

Their deaths sparked a labor response so rare in modern America that many citizens had never witnessed anything like it: a general strike that united unions, community organizations, clergy, immigrant advocacy groups, and thousands of residents in an act of economic resistance.

The crisis has exposed tensions between federal enforcement authority, constitutional protections, and local opposition. That conflict is now playing out in federal courts, Congress, and the streets of a city that has become ground zero for a confrontation over the scope and limits of immigration enforcement in the Trump administration’s second term.

Scale of the Federal Deployment

When the Department of Homeland Security announced in early January that it was launching what it called “the largest immigration enforcement operation ever carried out,” the federal government deployed approximately 2,000 ICE agents and 1,000 Customs and Border Protection agents to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul metropolitan area—a region more than a thousand miles from the southern border.

Vice President JD Vance defended the deployment by claiming Minneapolis had “the highest concentration of people who violated our immigration laws.” PolitiFact checked that claim and found that dozens of metropolitan areas across the country have larger populations of undocumented immigrants than Minneapolis. The Minneapolis metro area’s unauthorized immigrant population represents 2.4 percent of its total population.

The operation appeared to target specific communities with striking intensity. In the weeks before the major enforcement surge, ICE agents had focused particularly on Somali immigrants, reportedly planning to target the large Somali community in Minnesota that President Trump had publicly criticized on multiple occasions. During a Cabinet meeting in early January, Trump called people from Somalia “garbage” and said their country “stinks,” before adding that he did not want Somali nationals in the United States.

Against this backdrop, the surge appeared to many observers to be less a neutral application of immigration law and more a targeted response to the president’s expressed animus toward specific national origin groups.

Court documents indicate that as of late January, at least 2,000 ICE agents and 1,000 Border Patrol agents were actively participating in Operation Metro Surge. By contrast, typical ICE operations involve dozens of agents, not thousands. The Minnesota deployment also included the activation of 1,500 National Guard troops on standby, ostensibly for logistical support. Critics questioned whether such a deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act, the 1878 law that generally prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.

The scale suggested not a routine operation but rather what Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey characterized as a “federal occupation.”

Federal agents—many wearing tactical gear and masks that obscured their identity—traveled in convoys of unmarked SUVs through Minneapolis neighborhoods. They were breaching residential doors with battering rams, smashing car windows, and deploying tear gas and pepper spray against protesters. Agents rarely wore body cameras despite ICE policy requiring them. That made it difficult for the public or investigators to verify what occurred during encounters. Agents often wore masks that prevented identification, making accountability for individual agents nearly impossible.

The First Death

The first killing occurred on January 7, 2026. Renée Good, a 37-year-old mother of three from Minneapolis, was shot multiple times by ICE agent Jonathan Ross while she sat in her Honda Pilot SUV on Portland Avenue in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood.

According to eyewitness accounts and video evidence, Good positioned her vehicle sideways in the street as a form of peaceful protest against ICE activity. Officers were operating near a dual-language elementary school where children were being dropped off. She was, by most accounts, acting as a legal observer of ICE activity—a right that courts have recognized as protected conduct under the First Amendment.

ICE agents gave conflicting orders—some telling Good to drive away, others shouting at her to exit the vehicle. When she put her transmission in reverse to leave, agent Ross fired three shots at her SUV in less than one second. All three bullets hit her. According to video analyses by the New York Times and ABC News, the first shot struck the windshield while Good was still inside the vehicle. Two additional shots came through the driver’s side window.

Good sustained four gunshot wounds: two to the chest, one to the forearm, and one to the head. Agents carried her to the street about eight minutes after the shooting, placed her in an ambulance around 9:52 a.m., and doctors pronounced her dead at Hennepin County Medical Center.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem claimed that Good had “attacked” ICE agents and “attempted to run them over and ram them with her vehicle,” characterizing the shooting as self-defense. When journalist Jake Tapper confronted Noem on CNN with video footage contradicting this narrative, Noem doubled down, asserting “It absolutely is what happened” despite visual evidence showing no attempt to ram federal agents.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, having reviewed the footage himself, responded: “Having seen the video myself, I want to tell everybody directly that is bullshit. To ICE, get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

The Hennepin County Medical Examiner ruled Good’s death a homicide.

The Second Death

Seventeen days later, on January 24, 2026, another American citizen was killed during an ICE operation. Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old intensive care nurse employed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, was shot multiple times by U.S. Border Patrol agents near the intersection of 26th Street and Nicollet Avenue in the Whittier neighborhood of Minneapolis. Pretti was not the subject of enforcement. He was observing and attempting to assist during a federal operation.

Video evidence shows federal agents attempting to apprehend an undocumented immigrant who had entered a donut shop and locked the door behind him. Pretti, who was across the street, began observing and directing traffic to prevent harm to citizens and agents. Border Patrol agents began moving aggressively toward Pretti. A federal agent deployed pepper spray. Agents forced Pretti to the ground during a physical struggle involving multiple agents.

DHS claims that agents discovered Pretti was armed with a handgun and that he resisted arrest, leading to the shooting. However, multiple witnesses and video analysis by the BBC revealed that Pretti was not brandishing a weapon—he had a phone in his hand and nothing in the other. Frame-by-frame video analysis showed no evidence that Pretti presented an armed threat at the moment of the shooting.

A physician who was present at the scene and later provided medical aid observed at least three bullet wounds in Pretti’s back, one in his upper-left chest, and a possible wound to the neck. The agent who observed the aftermath noted that agents appeared to be counting bullet holes rather than providing emergency medical assistance.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino stated that agents attempted to disarm Pretti and that he resisted, causing one agent to fear for his life. Video footage directly contradicted key elements of this account. Bovino’s characterization of the enforcement target—claiming the person had a “significant criminal history”—was also false. When Minnesota Department of Corrections officials checked their records and those of Minnesota state courts, they found the individual had no criminal history in Minnesota and only misdemeanor traffic offenses from more than a decade earlier.

Court Findings on Operation Metro Surge

The two deaths catalyzed a broader crisis involving the entire scope of Operation Metro Surge. Federal courts began receiving emergency filings from detainees, legal observers, and civil rights organizations challenging the operation’s constitutionality. Those filings revealed a pattern of what federal judges described as systematic constitutional violations and deliberate disregard for court authority.

By late January 2026, Minnesota Chief U.S. District Judge Patrick Schiltz, a conservative jurist appointed by President George W. Bush who had clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia, issued an extraordinary statement about ICE’s compliance with court orders. Schiltz had surveyed judges in his court and compiled a list of cases involving Operation Metro Surge detainees who had sued for release or other relief.

ICE had violated at least 96 court orders in 74 different cases since January 1, 2026 alone. “ICE has likely violated more court orders in January 2026 than some federal agencies have violated in their entire existence,” Schiltz wrote. He attached a detailed appendix documenting the violations and added that this number was “almost certainly substantially understated,” meaning the actual count was likely higher.

The violations ranged from failure to comply with orders to release detainees to ignoring directives about when bond hearings must be conducted. Under established law, ICE must comply with court orders unless and until those orders are overturned or vacated by a higher court. Yet according to Schiltz’s investigation, ICE systematically ignored this basic principle of judicial authority.

In one case cited by the judge, ICE violated a court order to immediately release a man being held in detention and schedule a bond hearing. Instead, ICE held him for months in violation of that order. When Schiltz scheduled a contempt hearing to question ICE’s acting director Todd Lyons about the violations, DHS responded by labeling the conservative judge an “activist judge.”

Federal District Judge Kate Menendez, reviewing claims from six protesters and legal observers, issued a preliminary injunction finding that ICE likely violated the First Amendment rights of peaceful protesters and the Fourth Amendment rights of citizens subjected to traffic stops. The judge prohibited ICE from dispersing, threatening, or assaulting peaceful protesters and legal observers, from using chemical weapons against non-threatening demonstrators, and from firing tear gas or auditory weapons at protesters not engaged in violence.

Racial Profiling and Fourth Amendment Violations

The ACLU of Minnesota filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of three Minnesotans whose constitutional rights had been violated through suspicionless stops, warrantless arrests, and racial profiling.

One plaintiff, 20-year-old U.S. citizen Mubashir Khalif Hussen, described being stopped by masked ICE agents while walking to lunch in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. Despite repeatedly stating “I’m a citizen,” agents refused to look at his ID and took him to an ICE facility where they fingerprinted and shackled him before releasing him.

Another case involved ChongLy Thao, a U.S. citizen whose home was breached by ICE agents who refused to examine his identification and dragged him through the snow in his underwear before eventually releasing him an hour later when they realized their error.

The Fourth Amendment violations were severe because they involved the kinds of racial profiling that the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search and seizure were designed to prevent. Constitutional law scholar Emmanuel Mauleón explained that federal agents are subject to the same Fourth Amendment standards as state and local law enforcement: they can use force only when it is necessary and proper to accomplish lawful authority.

Yet the evidence suggested a pattern in which agents were stopping people based on perceived race, ethnicity, or accent rather than individualized suspicion. One ICE agent, when pepper-spraying the vents of a legal observer’s car, reportedly said “you guys gotta stop obstructing us, that’s why that lesbian bitch is dead”—a direct reference to using Good’s death as a justification for hostility toward observers.

A particularly contentious issue involved ICE’s use of administrative warrants versus judicial warrants. An administrative warrant is issued by an ICE official or immigration judge and authorizes arrest but does not authorize home entry without consent. A judicial warrant, by contrast, is issued by a neutral judge or magistrate based on probable cause and authorizes both entry and seizure.

Yet ICE agents were breaking into homes, ostensibly armed with administrative warrants, in violation of Fourth Amendment protections that require judicial warrants for home entry. A memo from the Department of Homeland Security, revealed through investigative journalism, instructed ICE agents that they could enter homes without judicial warrants—a practice that directly violates Fourth Amendment protections and Supreme Court precedent.

The General Strike

The deaths of Good and Pretti transformed what might have been a localized enforcement conflict into a labor movement moment. On January 23, 2026—a date coordinated before Pretti’s death but occurring in its immediate aftermath—Minneapolis witnessed something rare in 21st-century America: a general strike. Organizers estimated that more than 50,000 people marched through the streets in subzero temperatures, braving negative-20-degree weather and preparing for an incoming snowstorm. Over 700 small businesses voluntarily closed their doors in solidarity with the strike.

The event was characterized as the first general strike in the United States in eighty years, since the Oakland General Strike of 1946.

A coalition of labor unions, community organizations, faith leaders, and activist groups organized the action. The Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation, representing more than 80,000 workers across 175 affiliated unions, officially endorsed the action. Dozens of clergy members participated in demonstrations at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, singing hymns and prayers while kneeling on the road outside the terminal, calling for President Trump to withdraw federal agents. Police arrested approximately 100 clergy members during these peaceful demonstrations.

Cultural institutions closed in solidarity: the Walker Art Center, the Minneapolis Institute of Art, the Science Museum of Minnesota, and the Minnesota Children’s Museum all shut their doors. Small businesses ranging from coffee shops to bicycle repair stores to restaurants voluntarily ceased operations, with many explaining that they could not continue normal business operations while their community faced what they characterized as a federal occupation.

Organizers ran the strike under the banner “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom” and set explicit goals: demanding that ICE withdraw all agents from Minnesota, that Congress provide no additional federal funding to ICE, that the agent who killed Good be held criminally accountable, and that Minnesota’s major corporations cease cooperating with ICE activity.

Bernie Burnham, president of the Minnesota AFL-CIO, issued a statement explaining that union members would “speak with one voice as we call for ICE to leave our state, no additional funding for ICE, legal accountability for ICE’s killing of Renee Good, and for Minnesota’s large corporations to stop cooperating with ICE.”

Historical Context of General Strikes

A general strike represents a form of labor power—the collective withdrawal of labor and economic participation across an entire community, not a single industry or union. The last general strike in the United States before Minneapolis occurred in Oakland in 1946, when over 100,000 workers walked off their jobs for more than two days in support of striking department store workers. That 1946 strike represented a broad coalition: bus drivers, teamsters, sailors, machinists, cannery workers, railroad porters, waiters, waitresses, and cooks all participated.

The post-World War II political backlash to labor militancy was severe. The strike wave of 1946, in which nearly 4.5 million American workers participated—one of the largest totals in any single year in American history—provoked a fierce political response. In 1947, Congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act, which fundamentally weakened labor unions by banning secondary boycotts, permitting states to pass “right-to-work” laws, prohibiting union shop agreements, and allowing employers to campaign against unionization.

The decline in unionization that followed Taft-Hartley was dramatic: by the 21st century, private sector union membership had fallen to six percent, compared to over 34 percent in 1946.

The Minneapolis strike of 2026 occurred against this backdrop of diminished labor power. Yet it represented a potential renaissance of a form of labor activism—the general strike—that had become nearly extinct in modern America. A broad coalition called the strike, not a single union or even a coalition of unions over economic compensation. Organizers instead demanded an end to federal operations that they characterized as unconstitutional and murderous.

The participation of clergy members in the strike was significant. Clergy blocking an airport runway and facing arrest represented a form of civil disobedience grounded in moral conviction about the conduct of federal agents. This echoed the civil rights movement, in which clergy played key roles in challenging federal and state authority over issues of justice and constitutional protection.

The Second Strike and Its Limits

The Minneapolis strike’s success in terms of raw participation numbers was undeniable. The combination of union participation, business closures, and community mobilization created a genuine economic pause.

Yet the January 23 strike was followed by Pretti’s death on January 24, which intensified the crisis. Activists quickly called for a second general strike, scheduled for January 30, to expand the action nationally. This second strike, branded as “National Shutdown,” was endorsed by numerous celebrities and national organizations, with actors like Pedro Pascal, Jamie Lee Curtis, and Edward Norton publicly supporting the action.

However, when the second strike occurred on January 30, participation was notably lower than the January 23 action, with most Minnesota businesses remaining open despite organizing efforts.

The diminished participation in the second strike revealed something about the limits of sustained general strike action in contemporary America. The first strike had the advantage of novelty, moral urgency following Good’s death, and the element of surprise. The second strike, occurring a week later and after Pretti’s death, faced the challenge of maintaining momentum when the federal government showed no signs of backing down and when the economic costs of repeated closures became more apparent to small business owners.

The Congressional Battle

The constitutional and political crises converged in the congressional appropriations process, which became a high-stakes standoff as the January 30 government funding deadline approached. Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, made clear that they would not support funding for the Department of Homeland Security unless significant reforms to immigration enforcement were included.

If no funding agreement was reached, approximately half the federal government would be forced to shut down, affecting the Departments of Defense, Education, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Labor, State, Transportation, and Treasury.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer outlined specific requirements: prohibition on roving patrols, tightening of warrant rules, requirement that ICE coordinate with state and local law enforcement, implementation of a uniform code of conduct holding federal agents to the same standards as state and local officers, prohibition on wearing masks, requirement for body cameras, and mandatory identification.

These were not radical demands. They reflected standards already in place for state and local law enforcement in many jurisdictions. California, for example, had already passed laws requiring identification, prohibiting masks, and mandating body cameras for state and federal agents.

Senate Democrats insisted that DHS funding be separated from the broader spending package to allow time for negotiation of these reforms. Republicans resisted, arguing that splitting the bill would require House reconsideration and could allow hardline House conservatives to block any agreement. Democrats refused to fund an enforcement agency they believed was operating unconstitutionally. Republicans insisted on full funding with minimal constraints.

The bill that had been passed by the Republican-controlled House included some concessions but far fewer than Democrats sought. It trimmed Customs and Border Protection funding by $1 billion, allocated $20 million for body cameras (though not making their use mandatory), required deescalation training, and added $13 million for DHS Inspector General oversight.

The broader DHS funding was set to remain at $10 billion annually, with ICE operating under the umbrella of the enormous $170 billion in immigration enforcement funding that had been allocated through the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” passed in summer 2025. That $170 billion, spread over four years, included $75 billion specifically directed to ICE, providing the agency with resources to expand operations regardless of congressional appropriations.

As the January 30 deadline neared, Senate Republicans initiated procedural steps to vote on the minibus package, signaling unwillingness to separate DHS funding. The White House indicated support for “productive dialogue” but opposed conditioning DHS funding on legislative reforms.

Tom Homan Takes Over in Minneapolis

In late January, facing the accumulated pressure of protests, court orders, congressional opposition, and the general strike, the Trump administration made personnel changes and signaled some adjustments to Operation Metro Surge’s approach. Tom Homan, the White House’s “border czar,” was sent to Minneapolis to oversee the operation, replacing Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who had become the public face of the surge and whose aggressive media presence and controversial tactics had intensified public opposition.

Homan presented himself as willing to acknowledge that the operation could be improved: “I do not want to hear that everything that’s been done here has been perfect,” he said in a press conference, adding that the administration was working on making the operation “safer, more efficient, by the book.”

Homan indicated that the plan was to draw down the federal presence in Minnesota. He made clear this would depend on cooperation from Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, particularly regarding ICE’s access to detainees held in state prisons and county jails. He stated that the administration would prioritize arrests of known undocumented immigrants with existing criminal records and those who pose public safety threats, rather than continuing indiscriminate sweeps.

However, Homan also emphasized that the Trump administration was “not surrendering the president’s mission on immigration enforcement,” suggesting that any drawdown would be tactical rather than a fundamental change in policy.

The adjustments signaled acknowledgment that the operation, as originally conducted, was unsustainable—not because federal authority had been successfully constrained, but because the political and legal costs had become too high. The combination of court orders, congressional opposition, labor mobilization, and public pressure had created an untenable situation for federal officials seeking to maintain operations.

Legal and Constitutional Stakes

The operation in Minneapolis raised questions about the scope of federal immigration enforcement authority and the extent to which courts, Congress, and local opposition can constrain it.

The Fourth Amendment protects all persons—citizen and non-citizen alike—against unreasonable searches and seizures. Yet federal immigration agents were conducting what appeared to be pretextual stops based on perceived immigrant status rather than individualized suspicion of violations.

The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process also came into play. ICE was holding people in detention without timely bond hearings, in violation of established precedent and court orders. The administration attempted to claim a new interpretation of immigration law that would allow mandatory detention without bond hearings for certain categories of immigrants—a position that a federal judge called “plainly incoherent” and unsupported by the text of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Despite 347 federal judges across the country rejecting this position in over 2,400 cases, with only 20 judges agreeing with the administration, ICE continued to claim the authority to hold people without bond.

Vice President JD Vance initially claimed that ICE agents involved in the killings of Good and Pretti were protected by “absolute immunity,” a doctrine that shields federal officials from liability regardless of the conduct at issue. Legal experts quickly noted that this was not an accurate statement of law: federal agents do not have absolute immunity for all conduct, only qualified immunity, which shields agents only when they were not violating clearly established rights. When confronted with legal experts’ corrections, Vance walked back the “absolute immunity” claim.

Several Democratic representatives introduced the “Stop Excessive Force in Immigration Act,” which would have imposed mandatory use-of-force standards aligned with Department of Justice policy, required body cameras, prohibited facial coverings that obscure identity, and created an affirmative duty for agents to render medical aid. The bill explicitly noted that under the Trump administration, federal agents had been captured on video using excessive force against non-violent American citizens, immigrants, journalists, protesters, and clergy members.

Broader Pattern of Enforcement Escalation

Immigration enforcement had been dramatically escalated under the Trump administration’s second term, with ICE arrests quadrupling in the first nine months of 2025 compared to late 2024.

Particularly striking was the shift to street arrests rather than the traditional practice of taking custody of people arrested on criminal charges in state jails. Before 2025, ICE made few street arrests. In 2025, the number of street arrests increased by a factor of eleven. ICE also began arresting people without criminal convictions at rates never before seen.

The detention infrastructure had expanded from approximately 40,000 daily detention beds in January 2025 to over 60,000 by October 2025, primarily through increased capacity at existing facilities.

The administration had also sought to eliminate protections for undocumented immigrants, including Temporary Protected Status. In late January, DHS announced the termination of TPS for Somali nationals, effective March 17, 2026, despite State Department acknowledgment that Somalia continues to face terrorism, violent crime, and civil unrest. Immigration attorneys noted that the administration’s claim that “country conditions in Somalia have improved” was contradicted by conditions on the ground and the State Department’s own warnings about the country.

What made Minnesota distinct was the combination of the scale of deployment, the deaths of American citizens, the pattern of constitutional violations documented by federal courts, and the labor movement response. No major American city had experienced anything comparable to Operation Metro Surge’s scope.

The fact that the operation killed not enforcement targets but American citizens observing or attempting to assist during operations raised questions about whether the operation was designed to enforce immigration law or was instead a demonstration of federal power against a politically hostile state and city.

Minnesota’s Democratic leadership had been explicit critics of the Trump administration and had resisted cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey had publicly criticized the operation and refused to commit state resources to assist federal agents.

The Minnesota lawsuit alleged that Operation Metro Surge was motivated not by immigration enforcement concerns but by retaliation against political opponents. The lawsuit cited President Trump’s own statements calling Minnesota “corrupt” and “crooked” because the state had accurately reported election results that did not declare Trump the winner, and pointed out that the targeting of Minnesota fit a pattern of federal operations against Democratic-led cities including Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

Current Status and Unresolved Questions

As of late January 2026, Operation Metro Surge remained ongoing, though scaled back from its initial intensity. Federal courts continued to issue orders constraining ICE operations, but appeals courts moved on some issues to put stays on lower court injunctions, particularly regarding use of force against protesters.

Multiple investigations into the deaths of Good and Pretti remained underway, though the federal government had blocked state authorities from full access to evidence and investigation records, creating a situation unprecedented in Minnesota legal history.

The appropriations deadline of January 30 represented a moment for Congress to impose legislative constraints on ICE operations. If Democrats maintained their position and forced concessions, the resulting legislation could establish new standards for federal immigration enforcement nationwide. If Republicans and the administration prevailed in blocking legislative restrictions, it would signal that the executive branch’s enforcement power could operate with minimal oversight or constraint.

The federal government’s willingness to violate nearly 100 court orders, its use of masked agents preventing identification and accountability, its targeting of a state based on that state’s political opposition to federal policy, and the killing of American citizens during operations raised questions about the rule of law and the supremacy of courts.

Judge Schiltz had framed this not as a partisan issue but as a matter of institutional integrity: “This list should give pause to anyone—no matter his or her political beliefs—who cares about the rule of law.”

The general strike itself represented an assertion of popular sovereignty in the face of federal power that residents felt was unconstrained and unaccountable. Whether that assertion would prove effective in constraining federal enforcement, or whether the executive branch’s immigration enforcement authority would prove essentially unreviewable in practice, remained to be seen.

Two Americans are dead. Thousands took to the streets. Hundreds of businesses closed their doors. The question of who has the authority to say “enough” remained unresolved.

Our articles make government information more accessible. Please consult a qualified professional for financial, legal, or health advice specific to your circumstances.