This winter all eyes turned to Minneapolis as the city rose up to resist the occupation of federal forces and ultimately forced ICE to shift its plan of attack in U.S. cities. Here we republish a selection of key articles from Left Voice’s coverage to consolidate strategic lessons in solidarity with the Twin Cities and in preparation for the ensuing battles with ICE that lie ahead.
As ICE swells its reactionary presence across the country, the national resistance movement is looking to Minneapolis as a guide to beat them back. In the national and international spotlight since January, coverage of and from Minneapolis has filled Left Voice’s pages. This experience offers crucial lessons for the Left in the fight for socialism that we need to examine further. In this issue of Left Voice Magazine, we republish a selection of articles that highlight strategic lessons to guide the looming struggles ahead.
“Minneapolis: Notes on a New Chapter of Class Struggle in the United States” engages with the work of Anton Jäger, Robert D. Putnam, and Eric Blanc, using the fight against ICE in Minneapolis as a lens through which to see the terrain of future class struggle in the United States.
For a fresh view of this fight, we offer a montage from the front lines, “Thought is a weapon of class war.” By collaging memories, quotations, and images of struggle, we play with the form of writing, seeking not to think for our readers but alongside and together. Thus, the piece also invites responses: images, thoughts, memories you may want to share to build and test our arsenal of ideas.
“The Deep Roots of the Fight” reflects how Minneapolis has reshaped the political terrain for both the regime and the resistance. Amid the largest ICE operation in history, which aimed to make an example of the city with Trump’s vigilante-like force targeting the Somali immigrant community, “the Twin Cities’ resistance has inspired communities across the country, and is writing a new episode of class struggle in the post-neoliberal moment.” Drawing on the deep roots of struggle in the city historically — most recently threading through the 2020 George Floyd rebellion and 2022 teacher’s strike — Minneapolis in 2026 inaugurated a new chapter of working class activity that compromised Trump’s strategic coalition around immigration as never before and demonstrated on the national stage how the Far Right can be defeated by class struggle.
Just weeks after Trump’s imperialist invasion of Venuzuela, the President’s paramilitary forces, ICE and CPB, murdered legal observer Renee Nicole Good and nurse Alex Pretti. Outrage spread throughout the nation and Trump’s approval ratings plummeted. Massive protests in the Twin Cities were joined in outcry with solidarity demonstrations near and far against the domestic and international assaults, marking the foundational “unity of these two struggles — against ICE and imperialism.”
Minneapolis represented a serious advance in political consciousness among working people. So serious that social movement activists, union members, and others put forward a call for the use of the greatest weapon of the working class: the general strike. In “Outrage and Organization in Minneapolis,” we chronicle how union leaders pulled back from officially calling it a strike and refused to mobilize to the fullest of their power. Nevertheless, an economic shutdown and massive mobilizations swept Minneapolis, and solidarity actions joined in from across the country Jan 23 and 30.
“Every inch of the Twin Cities is being touched by people’s determination to defend their immigrant neighbors,” we reported in “Dispatches from the movement.” In sub-zero temperatures, from ICE watch patrols on nearly every corner to walk-outs by school children to grandparents on the picket lines, Minneapolis showed fierce determination to protect their immigrant neighbors.
The city’s popular resistance — characterized by self-organization, working class power, and militant perseverance — forced Trump’s hand and led to the firing of Border Patrol commander Bovino. With the power of this bottom up movement forcing the hand of the state, Democratic politicians and the courts sought to redirect popular anger into institutional channels, maintaining the status quo, albeit with less public spectacle of violent repression.
This is why Minneapolis’s “fight must become the fight of the entire labor movement,” we wrote, calling on unions, social movements, and political organizations in the Twin Cities and across the country to contribute resources and join existing committees of action to take up the fight against ICE.
“It feels like this entire city is having a shared political experience and is moved to act every which way you see it,” we wrote, citing how with great perseverance “schools have become bastions of struggle,” the neighborhoods developed block-by-block organization, and food distribution and ICE tracking showed the working class taking the initiative in the political scenario. Yet to sustain and deepen the resistance, we argued the need for popular assemblies, “open forums where everyone engaged in this struggle has a voice and a vote on the path forward,” and for labor to play an active supporting role.
In fact, on February 15, hundreds of workers across sectors did convene an assembly in Minneapolis to discuss and debate what happens next in the movement. The assembly was animated by the importance of building toward a mass strike to combat Trump’s offensive. Attendees brought ideas; discussed openly; adopted key demands and future days of action, including building May 1 as a day of “no work, no school, no shopping;” and prepared to disseminate these demands in their various workplaces and communities. At Left Voice we see this type of assembly as essential toward strengthening and scaling a viable fight against the Far Right.
The end of Operation Metro Surge in Minneapolis marked a tactical retreat by the Trump administration and a victory for the movement. DHS is regrouping to further its anti-immigrant offensive nationally, and we are drawing lessons to guide future struggle. Principally, class struggle can defeat Trump and the Far Right. Second, self-activity of the working class demonstrated immense novelty and should be emulated to build a positive path forward. Third, the union leaderships must call major workplace actions, including strikes, to bring the firepower of the working classto the fight. Fourth, independence from the Democratic Party is essential to avoid co-optation and containment of the movement.
From across the U.S., others are taking up these lessons to fight ICE locally, mobilizing, experimenting with self-organization, and resisting the siting of new detention centers.
In the weeks and months since ICE’s partial withdrawal from the Twin Cities, Trump has faced further scrutiny due to the resurgence of the Epstein affair. In this weakened position, the administration joined Israel to wage war on Iran and Lebanon, and has tightened its stranglehold on Cuba. Meanwhile China’s rise as a global power poses new challenges to U.S. uni-polar dominance. With this intensely destabilizing aggression situation surfacing new tensions, the local fight against ICE and the international fight against imperialism are two sides of the same coin. The concrete examples and lessons from Minneapolis show the way toward rising from the bottom up to confront the agenda of the Far Right and defend our neighbors and communities.
Table of Contents
“Minneapolis: Notes on a New Chapter of Class Struggle in the United States” by Daniel Kóvacs
“Image/Revolt: Minneapolis From Below” by Jason Koslowski
“The Deep Roots of the Fight Against ICE Pose Challenges for Trump” by Daniel Kóvacs and Lila Walters
“Dispatches from Minneapolis: The Movement Against ICE Has Touched Every Inch of the City” by Samuel Karlin
“Outrage and Organization in Minneapolis: Chronicle from a Historic Uprising” by Lila Walters
“How Minneapolis Defeated Bovino” by Remo Erdosian
“ICE Out of Minneapolis: A Battle the Whole Labor Movement Must Take Up!” by Maryam Alaniz and Samuel Karlin
“Minneapolis vs. ICE: A City in Revolt from Below” by Sou Mi
“Four Lessons from the Fight Against Trump and ICE in Minneapolis” by Sou Mi
“The Minneapolis Workers’ Assembly Is a Blueprint to Organize the Fight Against ICE” by Pola Posen
The post Minneapolis: The City that Fought Back appeared first on Left Voice.
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