© ERIK S. LESSER / EPA After the demise of two US citizens, a surge of demonstrations engulfed the nation.
Thousands of demonstrators flooded the streets of Minneapolis, and students throughout the United States staged mass walkouts from classes on Friday, urging the removal of federal immigration officials from Minnesota after shooting incidents resulted in the deaths of two US citizens, according to Reuters.
From California to New York, students and educators deserted classrooms in a nationwide day of action, occurring amidst inconsistent signals from Donald Trump's government concerning the potential scaling back of Operation Metro Surge.
As part of a nationwide crackdown on immigration matters, US President Donald Trump dispatched 3,000 federal law enforcement agents to the Minneapolis region, where they are patrolling streets in tactical gear. This contingent is five times larger than the city’s own police department.
🚨 HAPPENING NOW: Aerial footage shows a MASSIVE crowd peacefully marching through Minneapolis in protest of the Trump administration and ICE.
This isn't fringe. This isn't isolated.
This is sustained, organized, nationwide resistance and it's growing.📍 Minneapolis, Minnesota… pic.twitter.com/DKj8fY7vzA
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 30, 2026
Protesting against this build-up and the tactics utilized by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), several thousand individuals convened in downtown Minneapolis in frigid temperatures. Participants included families with their children, elderly pairs, and youthful community organizers.
Katya Kagan , donning a sweatshirt emblazoned with the phrase “No ICE” and bearing a placard insisting the agency vacate the city, conveyed that she is the offspring of Russian Jews who immigrated to the United States seeking refuge and a superior quality of life.
“I'm present because I'm prepared to advocate for the American dream that spurred my parents’ arrival,” Kagan expressed.
Kim , a 65-year-old meditation instructor who requested anonymity, characterized her engagement in the demonstration as “fundamental empathy” for her fellow Minneapolis inhabitants.
“Democracy itself is imperiled within Minnesota at this juncture. This constitutes a comprehensive fascist encroachment by the federal authority upon its citizens,” she asserted.
In the Minneapolis vicinity where federal immigration agents fatally shot two U.S. citizens — Alex Pretty and Renee Goode — earlier in the month, approximately 50 teachers and regional school personnel took to the streets in protest.
Rock musician Bruce Springsteen also participated in the demonstration, performing at a fundraising occasion in support of the Goode and Pretty families situated in downtown Minneapolis. With the declaration “Arrest the President” inscribed on his guitar, he presented his recent composition “Streets of Minneapolis,” conceived in response to the deaths.
Now: Bruce Springsteen sings “Streets of Minneapolis” in Minneapolis pic.twitter.com/y6PgLItFkb
— daviss 📸 (@daviss) January 30, 2026
The demonstrations weren’t exclusive to Minnesota.
“No work. No school. No shopping. Cease funding ICE,” reads the motto on the organizers’ website, nationalshutdown.org, enumerating 250 protest sites on Friday across 46 states and prominent cities, encompassing New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington.
In Aurora , Colorado, public schools were shuttered on Friday owing to an anticipated widespread walkout by instructors and learners. The Denver suburb underwent intense immigration raids in the preceding year, subsequent to Trump’s depiction of it as a “war zone” besieged by Venezuelan gangs.
In Tucson , Arizona, a minimum of 20 educational institutions terminated classes given expectations of widespread student and staff absenteeism.
Within Georgia , classes were called off at 90 secondary schools. In Chicago, demonstrators on the DePaul University campus articulated chants and brandished indicators bearing statements such as “sanctuary campus” and “fascists are unwelcome here.”
Secondary school students conveying anti-ICE placards walked out of instructional time in Long Beach , California. Within New York, an extensive column of students proceeded toward downtown Brooklyn, vocalizing condemnations against ICE.
Concurrently, a succession of demonstrations opposing the administration’s immigration strategies imperils a partial suspension of the US federal apparatus: Congressional Democrats have voiced opposition to appropriating funds for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the operations of ICE.
Late on Thursday evening, Senate Democrats and Trump achieved a consensus to sanction a more encompassing spending package while sustaining deliberations concerning limitations on the president’s immigration endeavor.
However, the agreement was already susceptible to disintegration on Friday because of remonstrations from certain legislators. The funding lapses at midnight.
The Justice Department apprehended former CNN anchor Don Lemon on Friday, levying accusations of violating federal statutes amidst a demonstration at a church in St. Paul , Minnesota, earlier this month. His legal representative, Abbie Lovell, characterized the detention as “an unprecedented assault on the First Amendment.”
Earlier in the week, Trump voiced his desire to “moderate the situation somewhat,” but on Friday, he reiterated his allegation that the Minnesota protestors were instigators . He had formerly intimated the invocation of the Insurrection Act to authorize military deployment.
“These individuals are compensated dissenters, paid agitators,” Trump declared, absent any provision of substantiating evidence.
The U.S. Department of Justice has commenced an inquiry into potential civil rights infringements associated with Pretty’s demise, which could potentially culminate in criminal indictments against the implicated officers, albeit the legal benchmark for such instances is exceedingly elevated.
Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche downplayed the breadth of the investigation at a press briefing on Friday, terming it “a routine FBI evaluation in circumstances akin to that which we observed last Saturday.”
In the span of a few weeks, Minnesota has morphed into a testing ground for the forceful repression of demonstrations, wherein the demarcation between upholding order and lawlessness is rendered ambiguous: protests are labeled “chaos,” the media is perceived as an adversary, and the Constitution is regarded as an impediment.
The precise rationale for the testing of the boundaries of permissibility within this location, in addition to the implications for rights and freedoms in the USA, are elucidated by Anna Brodsky-Krotkina, head of the Slavic Studies program at Washington and Lee University in Virginia (USA), within the article “The Tragedy in Minnesota as a Signal of the Crisis of American Democracy.”