A federal judge gave a significant victory to Minnesota protesters and observers of federal officers Friday, granting a preliminary injunction preventing the officers from retaliating against demonstrators. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Kate Menendez prevents the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement from arresting or detaining people who are…
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A federal officer has shot a second person in Minneapolis, just days after Trump immigration hawk Stephen Miller told ICE agents that they have “federal immunity” to act as they like — and that anyone obstructing them will face prosecution from the federal government. In a Fox News segment shared by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on X, Miller falsely said that it was a “felony” to…
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On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, a federal law that allows presidents to deploy the U.S. military domestically under certain circumstances, purportedly to help enforce local law enforcement amid civil unrest. Trump baselessly claimed that military presence is necessary in Minnesota’s Twin Cities to quell protests against his administration’…
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This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 15, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to put the US military on American streets, unless demonstrations against federal immigration operations in Minneapolis come to an end.
In a Truth Social post, Trump demanded that Minnesota elected officials “stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], who are only trying to do their job.”
If this doesn’t happen, the president said, he would invoke the Insurrection Act and “quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place” in the state.
“The Insurrection Act was always the plan, and Minneapolis is the test case,” said Melanie D’Arrigo, executive director of the Campaign for New York Health. “They sent ICE in to terrorize and attack Black and brown communities to provoke a response that would justify deploying the military domestically in Blue cities. This has never been about immigration.”
“Invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy military forces against the American people is the exact opposite of what Minneapolis — and the country — needs right now.” —Lisa Gilbert, Public Citizen
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made a similar warning last week, amid protests that erupted after the killing of Renee Nicole Good by a federal agent.
“What we are seeing right now,” said Omar, “not only from the surge of 2,000 federal agents—now we have another 1,000 apparently coming in—it is essentially trying to create this kind of environment where people feel intimidated, threatened, and terrorized. And I think the ultimate goal of [Homeland Security Security Secretary] Kristi Noem and President Trump is to agitate
This story originally appeared in Workday Magazine on Jan. 13, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times.
Unions and community groups gathered in front of the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota this morning to announce a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” on January 23 to oppose the ferocious assault on the state by federal immigration authorities.
“We are facing a tsunami of hate from our own federal government,” Abdikarim Khasim, a Minnesota rideshare driver, told the crowd. “We’re going to shut it down on the 23rd. We’re going to overcome this.”
JaNaé Bates Imari, representative of the church Camphor Memorial UMC., told the crowd that the joint action will be “a day when every single Minnesotan who loves this state—who loves the idea of truth and freedom—will refuse to work, shop and go to school. We are asking every single person, every family member, every teacher, every bus driver, every childcare worker, to come together, to be in community, to stand with one another.”
“What we have witnessed, what we have all gone through, is not normal,” she added. “We have seen through several videos the murder of one of our own, Renee Good. We have witnessed violence, over and over again. Families being ripped apart, loved ones being torn from their hospital beds, from their workplaces, homes. Violence is no longer a threat but a reality that surrounds us.”
Major labor unions in Minnesota are supporting the call, including Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005, SEIU Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, CWA Local 7250, and St.
This story originally appeared in Common Dreams on Jan. 13, 2026. It is shared here under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) license.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents deployed to Minnesota are pulling many nonwhite residents aside and asking them to prove their citizenship, according to several reports and multiple videos posted to social media this week amid the Trump administration’s surge of immigration agents to Minneapolis.
There is no federal law requiring US citizens to carry proof of their citizenship, and immigration agents are barred from carrying out indiscriminate searches unless they have reasonable suspicion to believe that someone is in the country without authorization.
And yet, one video, posted on Sunday by a Somali resident of Minneapolis, a US citizen named Nimco Omar, shows a group of agents accosting her and asking her to show her identification as part of what they said was a “citizen check.”
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Omar said she was on a walk when masked agents who “looked like soldiers” approached her and began questioning her.
The video shows one of the agents asking Omar, “Do you have an ID on you, ma’am?”
She replied: “I don’t need an ID to walk around in my city. This is my city.”
“OK, do you have some ID, then, please?” the officer asked. “If not, we’re going to put you in the vehicle, and we’re going to ID you.”
Omar responded: “I am a US citizen. I don’t need to carry around an ID in my home. This is my home.”
After being repeatedly asked, “Where were you born?” Omar replied simply, “Minneapolis is my home.”
The agent then told her: “We’re doing an immigration check. We’re doing a