ICE Out of Our Cities! Stop ICE Killings and Violation of Peoples’ Rights!
The ILPS-US Country Chapter expresses its utmost condemnation of the brutal ICE terror the Trump regime has been unleashing on the people across the US and especially Minnesota. The killing of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, and Keith Porter on the streets by federal agents and five migrants dying in ICE custody less than a month into this year alone demonstrates the sheer brutality of the vast deportation machine the US state has engineered. We salute the people of Minneapolis who persevere in protesting these fascist attacks, even at the risk of their own lives.
Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis is DHS’s largest operation yet involving over 3,000 ICE and CBP agents, accompanied by a distinct escalation of tactics against the people’s movement, killing two community responders, using children to bait their parents for detention and quelling protest actions. Victor Manuel Diaz, who was arrested in Minnesota, died questionably in ICE custody in Texas. There have been widespread impacts on the broader community, with schools and places of work shutting down due to ICE presence. The escalation in tactics are outgrowths of an inherently violent system, which has deported millions, tearing apart families and subjecting migrants to inhumane and deadly conditions.
The escalating attacks are a response by the ruling class to an inherently unstable economic and political system that seeks to place the burden of the crisis on the most vulnerable (e.g., migrant workers) and protects and consolidates the power of the ruling class through violence and militarization. Trump’s administration is furthering this with its so-called Big Beautiful Bill Act, including drastic expansion of ICE over the next several years all while slashing much needed social services of the people and its newly proposed unprecedented $1.5 trillion military budget for 2027.
As Trump cracks down on the people, there is an urgent need to defend peoples’ struggle and grow a broad-reaching movement. Federal law enforcement are attacking the people’s movement in an attempt to intimidate and silence those who resist by the threat of arrest, injury, and even death. Trump’s officials attempted to undermine the people’s movement by justifying state violence against the community, immediately labeling the murdered as terrorist threats without providing a shred of evidence. This despicable tactic is engrained in the very fabric of DHS, an agency born out of the US engendered “war on terror” in 2002. But it is ICE, CBP, the Pentagon, and every other institution of US domination, with Trump and his cronies at the helm, that are the real agents of terror in our communities.
We must look to Minnesota for inspiration for our collective resistance. On Friday January 23rd, upwards of 50,000 walked out of school and work and took to the streets in a general strike, braving dangerously cold temperatures to demand ICE out of their state. Workers and unions, students, community organizations, faith communities, and more came together to fight back against the attacks on the people and have won a temporary victory driving out the ruthless Border Patrol Commander Greg Bovino. Trump’s approval ratings continue to slide and even some Republicans are showing their dissent. We must continue building and broadening the united front, sustaining mass action with workers in the lead to show that change through mass movements is not only justified but wholly possible as long as we boldly take up the fight to bring down this empire. ILPS-US calls on its members and the people to take part in the national shutdown on Jan 30th to advance the peoples’ movement for justice and liberation.