Thousands of demonstrators demand ICE leave Minneapolis
Dozens of clergy arrested at anti-ICE protest near Minneapolis airport
Minnesotans hold ‘economic blackout’ to protest ICE crackdown
January 24|
Duration2:45People across Minnesota took part in an ‘economic blackout’ action on Friday to protest a federal immigration crackdown in parts of the state. Hundreds of businesses closed for the day and organizers urged people not to work or go to school.
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Thousands of demonstrators braved bitter cold to march through the streets of Minneapolis on Friday and demand an end to U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in their city, part of a wider show of defiance that organizers billed as a general strike.
On a day that started with temperatures as low as –29 C, organizers said as many as 50,000 people took to the streets, a figure that Reuters could not verify, as Minneapolis police did not respond to a request for a crowd estimate. Many demonstrators later gathered indoors at the Target Center, a sports arena with a capacity of 20,000 that was more than half full.
Organizers and participants said scores of businesses across Minnesota closed for the day and workers headed to street protests and marches, which followed weeks of sometimes violent confrontations between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and protesters opposed to Trump’s surge.
Just a day earlier, U.S. Vice-President JD Vance visited Minneapolis in a demonstration of support for ICE officers and to ask local leaders and activists to reduce tensions, saying ICE was carrying out an important mission to detain immigration violators.
In one of the more dramatic protests, local police arrested dozens of clergy members who sang hymns and prayed as they kneeled on a road at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport, calling for Trump to withdraw the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers sent to the area.
Organizers said their demands included legal accountability for the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in her car earlier this month as she monitored ICE activities.
They ignored commands to clear the road by officers from local police departments, who arrested and zip-tied dozens of the protesters — who did not resist — before putting them onto buses.
Reuters observed dozens of arrests, and organizers said about 100 clergy members were arrested.
Faith in Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that helped organize the protest, said the clergy were also calling attention to airport and airline workers who they said had been detained by ICE at work.
The group asked that airline companies “stand with Minnesotans in calling for ICE to immediately end its surge in the state.”
Across the state, bars, restaurants and shops were shuttering for the day, organizers said, in what was intended to be the largest display yet of opposition to the federal government’s surge.
“Make no mistake, we are facing a full federal occupation by the United States government through the arm of ICE on unceded Dakota land,” Rachel Dionne-Thunder, vice-president of the Indigenous Protector Movement, told the arena crowd.
She was one of a series of Indigenous, religious, labour and community leaders to speak, calling on ICE to withdraw and for a thorough investigation into Good’s shooting.
“We’ve seen an agency that seems to have no guardrails, as they have caused this pain and suffering all across Minnesota,” said Lizz Winstead, a comedian and abortion rights advocate who served as host.
Trump, a Republican, was elected in 2024 largely on his platform of enforcing immigration laws with a promise to crack down on violent criminals, saying former president Joe Biden, a Democrat, was too lax in border security.
But Trump’s aggressive deployment of federal law enforcement into Democratic-led cities and states has further fuelled America’s political polarization, especially since the shooting of Good, the detention of a U.S. citizen who was taken from his home in his underwear, and the detention of school children including a five-year-old boy.
Miguel Hernandez, a community organizer who closed his business, Lito’s Bakery in Minneapolis, for the day, put on four layers, wool socks and a parka before heading out to protest.
“If this were any other time, no one would’ve gone out,” he said, bracing for the weather.
“For us, it’s a message of solidarity with our community, that we see the pain and misery that’s going on in the streets, and it’s a message to our politicians that they have to do more than grandstand on the news.”
The numerous Fortune 500 companies that call Minnesota home have refrained from public statements about the immigration raids.
Minneapolis-based Target, which has come under fire in the last year for retreating from its public commitment to diversity policies, has faced more criticism for not speaking out about activity at its stores. State lawmakers have pressed the company for details of its guidance to employees if and when ICE officers show up at stores.
The company declined a request for comment.
Reuters also contacted Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, Medtronic, Abbott Laboratories, Best Buy, Hormel, General Mills, 3M and Fastenal.
None immediately responded to requests for comment.
“The silence from the corporations in the state is deafening,” Winstead told the arena crowd.
Controversy over TV writer Graham Linehan’s arrest for anti-transgender posts sees police appeal for clarity
September 3, 2025 / 12:29 PM EDT / CBS/AFP
London’s police chief has appealed for change, arguing that his officers are in an “impossible position” as they try to navigate the evolving landscape of online free speech while enforcing existing laws that bar threats and incitement to violence. The Metropolitan Police chief has called on Britain’s government to “change or clarify” the relevant laws after the controversial arrest of Irish comedy writer Graham Linehan over anti-transgender social media posts.
Linehan, who co-created the popular 1990s British sitcom “Father Ted” and wrote and created the more contemporary “The IT Crowd,” says he was arrested by five armed officers at London’s Heathrow Airport on Monday over his social media posts.
On his page on the Substack platform, Linehan said he asserted in one of the X posts in question that trans women being in female-only spaces was a, “violent, abusive act,” and added a call for people who see trans women in such spaces to, “make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails punch him in the balls.”
The Guardian newspaper reported Wednesday that the police force was still discussing Linehan’s arrest with the Crown Prosecution Service, which determines whether any formal charges should be filed against people suspected of crimes.
Linehan, 57, is due to appear in court Thursday in a separate case, in which he has been charged with the online harassment of an 18-year-old transgender woman called Sophia Brooks. He has pleaded not guilty to those charges.
Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Mark Rowley has defended the officers who took Linehan into custody at Heathrow, saying in a statement seen by CBS News that the decision to arrest Linehan, “was made within existing legislation — which dictates that a threat to punch someone from a protected group could be an offense.”
But, Rowley added: “I don’t believe we should be policing toxic culture wars debates and officers are currently in an impossible position.”
He said police would “make similar decisions in future unless the law and guidance is changed or clarified.”
Britain’s laws against inciting violence have been in place for decades, but in more recent years, specific legislation has also barred hate that targets people based on their sexual orientation or gender.
Rowley acknowledged “concern caused by such incidents given differing perspectives on the balance between free speech and the risks of inciting violence in the real world,” and said Met officers would now pursue people over social media posts only, “where there is a clear risk of harm or disorder.”
“Where there is ambiguity in terms of intent and harm, policing has been left between a rock and a hard place by successive governments who have given officers no choice but to record such incidents as crimes when they’re reported,” he said.
“A long history of free speech”
The arrest of the Emmy award-winning writer has reignited a debate in the U.K. over freedom of speech, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer urging police on Wednesday to “focus on the most serious issues.”
Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling, well known as outspoken in her stance on gender and trans issues, called Linehan’s arrest “utterly deplorable” and “totalitarianism,” while X owner and former aid to President Trump Elon Musk called Britain a “police state.”
Far-right British politician Nigel Farage, an ally of Mr. Trump whose Reform Party is currently leading others in U.K. opinion polls, said he would raise the case, and others, when he gives evidence to the U.S. Congress on Wednesday.
“The Graham Linehan case is yet another example of the war on freedom in the U.K.,” he said ahead of his appearance in front of the House Judiciary Committee. “Free speech is under assault, and I am urging the USA to be vigilant.”
But there was support for the police’s arrest of Linehan from some British politicians, including the newly-appointed leader of the Green Party, Zack Polanski.
Speaking Tuesday night on the BBC’s “Newsnight” program, Polanski called Linehan’s posts on social media “totally unacceptable.”
“Proportionality of police response is a conversation that we need to have,” Polanski said, but he added that he could not understand why it would require five armed police officers to make such an arrest.
Starmer, meanwhile, told Britain’s parliament on Wednesday that there is “a long history of free speech in this country,” and “we must ensure the police focus on the most serious issues.”
Starmer’s government recently declared activist group Palestine Action a terrorist organization, leading to the arrest of at least 700 people, some over 70 years old.
