In January 2026, the working class of Minneapolis rose up against escalating violence from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in their city. Hundreds of thousands of people, led by migrants and communities of colour, took to the streets in staunch resistance against racist state brutality. Three months on, the movement has dwindled in size and revolutionary fervour since it forced the US government to roll back its siege-like strategy. But a movement still bubbles beneath the surface as ICE terror wages on across the country.
The militant, working-class resistance to the deadly crackdown in Minneapolis dubbed ‘Operation Metro Surge’ forced the Trump administration into a tactical retreat to avoid fuelling the spreading movement. By late March, Markwayne Mullin was appointed Secretary of Homeland Security to spearhead a new strategy, scaling back on the public spectacles that characterised the previous operation. Mullin made clear that this was by no means an end to the violence: the White House was ‘still enforcing immigration laws, but in a more quiet way’. That the US state had to reel in its blatant displays of brutality to avoid making headline news exposes the ruling class’s fear of mass resistance.
Further attacks on migrants
Under pressure to scale back mass deportation raids, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has employed intensified behind-the-scenes methods of terrorising migrant communities, namely through the erosion of their rights and protections.
State approval for green cards and humanitarian visas has continued its rapid decline. The Trump administration is pushing to strip Temporary Protected Status from refugees from over 13 countries, making those migrants more vulnerable to deportation. On 22 May, the government announced that they are rolling out a policy which requires anyone applying for a green card to leave the country during the application process. This is all part of the Trump administration’s attempts to frustrate any pathway for migrants into the US.
All the while, ICE continues to kidnap people off the street and from their homes. Tom Homan, the White House’s ‘border czar’, boasted that as of early May, immigration officers are arresting around 1,200 people daily.
Following threats from Homan against states and cities that have sought to limit coordination with ICE, the Department of Justice (DOJ) launched lawsuits against Oregon, Maine, Massachusetts, and Washington over the states’ refusal to grant ICE agents confidential licence plates for use in undercover operations. The DOJ claimed that by refusing the plates, these states were obstructing necessary safety measures for federal agents who would otherwise face ‘harassment, tracking and assaults while they carry out arrests’. This development is a direct result of the militancy of the movement earlier this year – both the Trump administration and Democrat state officials know that another episode of massive resistance would have dangerous implications for the ruling class.
The nature of the Minneapolis movement
The Trump administrations new tactics have proven effective to an extent – when Operation Metro Surge slowed down, the scale of the public outcry diminished with it. The movement developed organically from the streets, students, migrants, and the most conscious sections of the working class, but without organised political direction, the wider movement that was mobilised lacks a sustainable, militant anti-imperialist character. The stifling effects of Democrats’ bourgeois liberalism and the toothlessness of the trade unions have helped to quell the vigour that exploded in January. Forced to respond to the uprisings, the Democratic Party had nothing to offer except mainstream opposition, calling for an end to all violence and championing electoralism as the solution to a narrow ‘Trump problem’. In line with the direction from the largest union federation, AFL-CIO, unions such as the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and United Auto Workers (UAW) refused to defy anti-strike laws and take any meaningful action. When pressured by the independent movement to endorse a general strike on 23rd January, CWA Local President Keiran Knutson expressed that while a strike would be the ‘politically right’ course of action, it would risk union membership ‘losing the money [they] have’.
These are important lessons for the US working class, and faced with continuous state violence, the revolutionary and militant forces that thrust the movement forward have not gone away.
Resistance continues
Inside Delaney Hall ICE facility in Newark, New Jersey, nearly 300 detainees have launched a hunger and work strike in protest against the deplorable conditions and treatment inside the centre. For weeks, detainees have been reporting abuse from guards, withholding of medical treatment, inedible food, and revocation of their visitation rights and means of communication with their families. Facing the same dismal conditions, hunger strikes have reportedly spread to at least five other detention facilities throughout the country. This has culminated over the past week in violent clashes with ICE officials both inside and outside the Newark centre. Scenes are circulating of ICE agents beating protestors with batons and pushing them into moving traffic. As we go to press, at least six protestors have been arrested and four hospitalised after ICE deployed chemical agents on people attempting to block vans from entering or leaving the facilities.
Clad in gas masks and keffiyehs, these militant shows of resistance, in conjunction with the migrant struggle from inside these sites of racist state violence, continue to spread across the country. The heart of the struggle lies in its understanding of US imperialism as the main enemy. Only such a revolutionary consciousness can form the basis for a movement capable of challenging state power. It is the duty of socialists to strengthen and politically guide this movement to its logical conclusion.
Lucinda Jules
