MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 30 — Student organisers have called for walkouts and protests across the United States on Friday to demand that federal immigration agents withdraw from Minnesota, after two fatal shootings of United States (US) citizens generated public outrage.
The call for a general strike follows last Friday's protests when thousands marched through Minneapolis in the bitter cold, urging an end to President Donald Trump's immigration crackdown in their city.
Protesters said they want to step up pressure even after Trump said he would "de-escalate a little bit" in Minnesota.
"We want this to be more of a sustained movement, so going forward: more striking, more protesting," said the University of Minnesota's Black Student Union member Brianna Jackson in a video promoting the strike.
On Thursday, US border czar Tom Homan, newly installed as leader of Trump's immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis, said that federal officers would focus on targeted operations, shifting away from the broad street sweeps.
New internal guidance from a high-ranking official at the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency directs federal officers to avoid unnecessary communication and engagement with "agitators" to avoid "inflaming the situation."
"No work. No school. No shopping. Stop funding ICE," ran a slogan on the website nationalshutdown.org that listed 250 sites for Friday's protests across 46 states and in major cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington.
Voters ousted the Democrats from the White House and returned Trump to power in 2024, partly out of frustration with a surge in illegal immigration to the United States.
However, a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll revealed that after weeks of videos showing aggressive tactics by heavily armed and masked officers in Minneapolis, American approval of Trump's immigration policy has fallen to its lowest in his second term. A majority of respondents said his crackdown had gone too far.
A day after last Friday's protests, immigration officers shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, an intensive care nurse at a hospital for military veterans.
Many people were already upset at the shooting death of Renee Good, 37, a mother of three, in her car on January 7.
Good and Pretti had been monitoring immigration officers, as part of a movement that enabled witnesses to capture both shootings on cellphone video.
At a memorial at the site where Pretti was killed, a woman laid a bouquet of flowers and quietly wept on Thursday, saying she felt moved to protest in his memory.
"I am absolutely not spending any money tomorrow. It is my little way of being a voice for those who do not have them, like Alex," said Stacy, who asked that her last name not be used.
In the southern state of Georgia, students at 90 high schools from Atlanta to Savannah plan to walk out of class on Friday.
"We are saying no business as usual while ICE is allowed to terrorise our communities," said Atlanta's Party for Socialism and Liberation immigrant rights organiser Claudia Andrade.
On the eve of the protests, the police in Washington, D.C., arrested 54 demonstrators of different religious affiliations who sat on the floor at the Hart Senate Office Building, holding banners that read "Do Justice, Love kindness, Abolish ICE."
They were demanding that the US Senate withhold funding from the Homeland Security Department, which oversees ICE.
