Hundreds of businesses in Minnesota will shut their doors on Friday as part of an economic protest against the immigration crackdown in their state.
Organisers called for residents to skip work or school, if possible, and refrain from shopping, in a show of opposition to the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE).
They also planned rallies in St Paul and Minneapolis, two cities that have seen intense immigration enforcement activity.
The Trump administration characterises the immigration enforcement as a public safety operation aimed at deporting alleged criminals who are in the country illegally. Critics warn migrants with no criminal record and US citizens are being detained too.
Thousands of federal officers have been deployed to Minnesota as part of “Operation Metro Surge”. On Wednesday, Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the government had arrested “10,000 criminal illegal aliens in Minnesota,” since President Donald Trump returned to office one year ago.
But the killing of 37-year-old Minneapolis woman Renee Good earlier this month has sparked widespread protests across the state and condemnation from local officials.
While many protests remain peaceful, some have led to violent clashes between demonstrators and federal officers.
“We want ICE out of Minnesota, and we want ICE out of every state, with their extreme overreach,” said Bishop Dwayne Royster, whose organisation Faith in Action is supporting local partners in Minneapolis during the strike. “We want Congress to stand up and provide oversight to ICE.”
On Friday morning, Minneapolis resident Corey Lamb closed his business, Harriet Grove Botanicals, and headed to a protest. He objected to the presence of ICE agents in his city, and was outraged by Good’s death in early January.
He also saw the immigration raids as an economic threat to his business, and others in his community.
“We have a lot of friends that we rely on, we have a lot of businesses that we rely on, in order to make our business work,” Lamb told the BBC. “When those individuals are struggling because they’re afraid of being detained or disappeared, it has an effect not only morally but economically on what’s going on here, and also in the greater Midwest.”
Mr Lamb’s business is expected to be joined by hundreds of others, from restaurants and tattoo parlours to toy stores.
Kim Bartmann is the owner of six restaurants in Minneapolis, including four that remain open in the winter but will be shut on Friday.
While she supports the cause, she said the decision to participate had been a tricky one, given the costs.
“Everyone is in solidarity, but everyone needs to buy groceries and pay their rents,” she said, noting that staff at one of her locations had initially asked to stay open, before deciding the risk of backlash over not participating would be too great.
“Economically, it is a severe blow to my business,” she said.
She said sales at her restaurants, which include Barbette and Gigi’s Café, have already dropped more than 30% over the past three weeks as a result of the ICE operation, which has prompted her to limit her opening hours as customers and staff stay home.
“We have a lot of employees who are US citizens or have paperwork to work in the US who are still terrified to leave their homes,” she said.
ICE’s presence has outraged many of Minnesota’s residents, who have protested against their operations and other federal officers operating in their city.
This week, school officials in the suburb of Columbia Heights announced that four of their students had been detained by ICE, ranging from ages five to 17.
In a speech on Thursday, Vice President JD Vance called for local Minnesota law enforcement to coordinate with federal officers to carry out immigration enforcement.
Minnesota, and some of its cities, have so-called “sanctuary” policies, which limit the ways that local government and law enforcement cooperates with ICE. The Trump administration has criticised these policies as a threat to public safety.
“There are a lot of things all of us could do better to lower the temperature,” Vance said. “But the number one thing that I learned today, is the best way to facilitate reasonable enforcement the law, but also to lower the chaos in Minneapolis, would be for state and local officials to cooperate.”
By BBC News
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