FOR A GENERAL STRIKE
WORKER UNITY AGAINST ICE TERROR
Statement by Socialists Without Borders — January 22, 2026
We salute all workers, youth, and families who tomorrow, January 23, 2026 will stand up in struggle in every corner of this country. We send our most fraternal embrace to the people of Minneapolis, whose courage in the face of ICE crimes has mobilized our communities.
Today’s action is a landmark in the movement we have been promoting. On October 24, 2025, we took a bold step when we picketed ICE’s San Francisco detention center calling for a general strike. Today, with that experience, we join the struggle taking place across the country.
Tomorrow we march for Mateo Terán, who died in custody; for Renee Nicole Good, the working mother fatally shot in the face by ICE agents; and for everyone else who has suffered in this outrageous state violence.
These tragedies are not isolated incidents. They are the vicious attacks of the captains of capitalism seeking to divide our community by fear and violence. We must be clear: immigrant workers are WORKERS, and workers’ organizations have the responsibility to defend ALL workers and oppressed people from these attacks. If an injury to one is really an injury to all, then our class can and will respond to the state’s brutality with labor action unlike any the people of the United States have ever known.
The pillars of our community are already on the front lines. We send our greetings to the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), in full solidarity with the mobilizations against ICE in Minneapolis. We also greet the Communities Organizing Latinx Power and Action (COPAL) in complete accord with their organization of the power of midwestern families. We salute the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), who defend workers throughout the country. We also recognize the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, who today began a Multifaith Solidarity Fast in front of San Francisco City Hall. Tomorrow, they will mobilize toward the ICE offices on Sansome Street to demand justice for Guillermo Medina Reyes, a Bay Area artist and activist, survivor of detention center abuse and ICE retaliation. We demand justice for all victims of state violence. We are with you, comrades, and we will be out tomorrow, too.
We recognize that the unions are also moving and joining this call. In the Bay Area, we salute the participation of Service Employees International Union Local 1021, International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 10 and 34, United Educators of San Francisco, UNITE HERE Local 2, and the California Nurses Association. They are joined by national forces such as Minneapolis Federation of Teachers Local 59, Service Employees International Union Local 26, UNITE HERE Local 17, United Food and Commercial Workers, National Education Association, Chicago Teachers Union, rank-and-file sectors of the Teamsters, Amazon Labor Union, United Auto Workers, Communication Workers of America, American Postal Workers Union, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, National Nurses United, Amalgamated Transit Union, Transport Workers Union, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and Starbucks Workers United.
This union mobilization, however, must take a decisive step: it is time to break with the Democratic Party. The Democrats are working hand in glove with the Trump Administration and ICE, partially by preventing mass labor actions through their death grip on the union bureaucrats who have the labor movement in a chokehold. The Democrats criticize ICE on the news, then with the same breath call for stronger border protections. They must be held to account alongside those who kidnap, detain, and deport those under attack — if they don’t outright murder them. They are all responsible.
Meanwhile, the true strength of unions lies in their political independence and their ability to directly impact the structures that oppress us all. You have the power to strike in unison against not only wages and working conditions, but also state violence. Liberation will not come by voting and campaigning for those who finance ICE terror, but from our own readiness and our willingness to use the power of the general strike to shut down capitalism and force its captains to meet our terms.
We invite you to raise your voices to demand that all Labor Councils put themselves at the front of the struggle, like they always claim they to be. Formal endorsement is fine, but what we really need is for their endorsement to mean something shoulder to shoulder with us in struggle. We are happy to include your logo on our flyers, but that doesn’t mean much without real protections for workers in their workplaces and in the streets.
Our program is clear: Abolish ICE, Papers for All, and an End to Deportations. We maintain that those who produce the wealth of this country have the right to remain in it without fear. Tomorrow, community and union organizations will prove to be the primary tool to stop the abuses of la migra.
It is past time for everyone to join the fight.
ALL SOLIDARITY WITH THE PEOPLE OF MINNEAPOLIS!
JOIN THE GENERAL STRIKE
ABOLISH ICE! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!