Activists are calling for a national strike to protest ongoing immigration enforcement presence and President Donald Trump’s handling of mass deportations. The strike, which is set to go down this Friday (Jan. 30), follows a general strike organized in Minnesota just last week.
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“Every day, ICE, Border Patrol and other enforcers of Trump’s racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbors and sow fear,” the website for the National Shutdown campaign said. “It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!”
We previously told you tensions in Minneapolis are at an all time high following the shooting of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse and anti-ICE protester. Thousands of folks have already hit the streets to honor him and Renee Good, another Minneapolis resident killed by ICE just three weeks earlier.
The National Shutdown campaign is calling for absolutely “no work, no school, no shopping” on Jan. 30. Organizers are also urging folks to stop “funding ICE” and demand “ICE out of everywhere.”
While activists and everyday Americans are planning to strike, Democrats in Congress are threatening a partial government shutdown in response to the ICE violence. The Root also told you Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer released a statement condemning the recent violence in Minneapolis.
“What’s happening in Minnesota is appalling and unacceptable in any American city,” he wrote after Pretti’s killing. “Democrats sought common sense reforms in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill, but because of Republicans’ refusal to stand up to President Trump, the DHS bill is woefully inadequate to rein in the abuses of ICE.”
On Wednesday (Jan. 28), Democrats revealed a new set of demands to which Republicans must agree in order to avoid a partial shutdown set for Friday (Jan. 30), the same day as the planned general strike, the Hill reported.
The shutdown campaign declared the killings of Pretti, Good, Silverio Villegas González in a Chicago suburb and Keith Porter Jr. on New Years Eve all by federal agents as beyond unacceptable. “While Trump and other right wing politicians are slandering them as ‘terrorists,’ the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt,” organizers wrote on the website. “They were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation.”
So far, the campaign has been endorsed by more than 25 organizations, including the Black Student Union at University of Minnesota and Black Lives Matter Grassroots in Detroit. Celebrities like Chicago rapper Vic Mensa have also spoken out ahead of the strike.
“Minneapolis brought out 100,000 people for a general strike,” the rapper said on Instagram. Last Friday (Jan. 23), Minneapolis residents organized in a massive protest against ICE. Reports estimate anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 demonstrators showed up. The next day, Pretti was shot and killed.
Mensa continued, “The only tool we have to fight back against ICE terror is to expand and extend that general strike to a nationwide general strike this Friday.”
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