'National Shutdown Day': Anti-ICE general strike planned across US for 30 January

Civil society groups and celebrities are calling for a general strike or "National Shutdown Day" across the US on Friday, 30 January, to protest the government's hardline immigration crackdown.

In cities and towns across the country, people will not be going out to school, work or shopping to show solidarity with residents in Minnesota, where earlier this month Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents fatally shot two local protesters.

What began as a crackdown on the state's Somali community, purportedly due to fraud, quickly escalated to ICE agents entering homes without warrants, separating children of immigrants from their families, and creating makeshift checkpoints in the middle of busy streets.

"The people of the Twin Cities have shown the way for the whole country—to stop ICE's reign of terror, we need to SHUT IT DOWN. On Friday, January 30, join a nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping," reads a statement from the website for the National Shutdown.

"The entire country is shocked and outraged at the brutal killings of Alex Pretti, Renee Good, Silverio Villegas González, and Keith Porter Jr. by federal agents. While Trump and other right wing politicians are slandering them as 'terrorists', the video evidence makes it clear beyond all doubt: they were gunned down in broad daylight simply for exercising their First Amendment right to protest mass deportation," the statement continues, referring to the two people killed by ICE agents in Minnesota, and one killed in Chicago and another in Los Angeles.

"Every day, ICE, Border Patrol and other enforcers of Trump's racist agenda are going into our communities to kidnap our neighbours and sow fear. It is time for us to all stand up together in a nationwide shutdown and say enough is enough!" the statement reads.

Some of the main organisers of Friday’s general strike are student unions and labour activists from the University of Minnesota, who advocated a similar statewide action on 23 January, the previous Friday. This time, the shutdown is set to be nationwide, with hundreds of endorsements from local, state and national organisations, and with some major names showing their support.

"What they're doing in Minnesota with the strike needs to expand," actor Edward Norton told the Los Angeles Times while at the recent Sundance Film Festival, where there was a major anti-ICE march. "We should be talking about a national general economic strike until this is over."

Hip-hop singer Vic Mensa, who recently took part in an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, also voiced support for a national strike.

"Man, Minneapolis brought out 100,000 people for a general strike on Friday, and the only tool we really have to fight back against ICE terror is to expand and extend that general strike to a nationwide general strike. This Friday, no work, cut it all off," Mensa said in a video posted on Instagram.

Similarly, actress Lee Curties took to Instagram with a flier for Friday's general strike, reading, "Pretti Good Reason for a National Strike" along with a short caption in all upper-case reading, "THESE WERE AMERICANS SHOT BY OUR GOVERNMENT!"

Meanwhile, multiple lawmakers from both major parties have affirmed their support for ICE's withdrawal from local communities.

Congresswoman Ayana Pressley, a Democrat from Massachusetts, took to X, formerly Twitter, to remind people that she had run on an anti-ICE platform for her 2018 campaign and was called "radical" and "fringe" at the time. Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, has called for ICE to withdraw from Minnesota and from her state.

Like last week's general strike in Minnesota, this nationwide shutdown will be held in sub-zero temperatures across much of the US.