[STATEMENT] INTERNATIONAL MIGRANTS ALLIANCE: ICE OUT OF OUR COMMUNITIES!

STATEMENT OF SOLIDARITY WITH THE GENERAL STRIKE IN MINNEAPOLIS

The International Migrants Alliance expresses its strongest solidarity with the workers, migrants, and communities of Minneapolis and Minnesota who have launched a historic general strike demanding ICE out of the streets.

For the first time in more than 80 years, the working class has once again wielded one of its most powerful collective weapons, the general strike. This action is not only a protest. It is a declaration that the economy, the streets, and society itself do not function without the labor of workers and migrants.

This strike emerges in response to intensified ICE violence against migrants and communities. On January 7, 2026, Renée Nicole Good, a 37-year-old American mother of three and community observer, was fatally shot by a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis during a federal enforcement operation. An independent autopsy confirmed she suffered multiple gunshot wounds including a fatal head wound. Her death has been officially treated as a homicide by law enforcement and sparked waves of outrage and protest across Minnesota. 

On the morning of January 24, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota, 37-year-old Alex Jeffrey Pretti, an American intensive care nurse who worked at the Veterans Affairs hospital, was executed by U.S. Border Patrol agents during a federal immigration enforcement operation. At the time of the incident, Pretti was recording and then helped a female protester who had been pushed and pepper-sprayed by ICE agents. Homeland Security used the pretext that shots were fired because Pretti had a firearm and was considered a threat to the agents on duty. However, some sources said that another agent had already confiscated his legally licensed firearm and removed it from the scene moments earlier. Pretti was shot several times in the back until he died. The incident prompted widespread protests, legal action, and calls for an independent investigation, intensifying national debate over federal law-enforcement tactics and accountability.

These killings occurred as part of Operation Metro Surge, an expanded ICE enforcement effort that has disrupted daily life across Minnesota and led to mass arrests and fear in immigrant neighborhoods.

This tragedy is not isolated. In early January 2026, at least four people died while in ICE detention, including 55-year-old Cuban migrant Geraldo Lunas Campos, whose death was ruled a homicide due to asphyxia while restrained by guards in an ICE facility in Texas. Witnesses reported he repeatedly said he could not breathe as guards applied force.

Record figures from 2025 show that more people died in ICE custody than in any year in over two decades, with dozens of migrants losing their lives in detention centers nationwide under crowded and unsafe conditions.

Migrants are workers. Migrants are essential. And migrants are under attack by an enforcement system that has repeatedly failed to protect basic human rights.

IMA recognizes this general strike as part of a growing global resistance against forced migration caused by war, militarism, and neoliberal plunder, against anti-migrant laws and deportation regimes, and against the use of immigration enforcement to depress wages and silence dissent.

From the United States to Asia-Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, migrants are resisting the same system, a system that profits from displacement while criminalizing survival.

We salute the courage of the striking workers, the migrant communities who stood at the forefront, and the unions, faith leaders, students, and grassroots organizations who answered the call. This action revives a powerful tradition of working-class struggle and reminds the world that solidarity is stronger than fear.

IMA stands with the US people’s demand for ICE out of our streets, an end to raids, detention, and deportations, and the full defense of migrant workers’ rights.

The International Migrants Alliance calls for the building of an all-workers united front, uniting migrant and local workers across sectors and communities to sustain collective action, defend our rights, and confront repression and exploitation together. 

The International Migrants Alliance calls on migrant organizations, unions, and people’s movements worldwide to draw inspiration from Minneapolis and to strengthen collective action against repression, fascism, and imperialism.

Long live migrant and worker solidarity!
Down with ICE and all forms of repression!