January 7, 2026
The killing of Renee Nicole Good at the hands of federal agents (ICE/Border Patrol) today in Minneapolis is abhorrent. It is not an isolated incident or a tactical error; it is the operational execution of a policy of military occupation in our cities. This crime marks the final limit of the working class’s patience with a bipartisan system—led by both the Democratic and Republican parties—that has kept millions of people in terror and precariousness for nearly 40 years. Stop this madness!
The Management of Defeat: Mayors and Containment Organizations
- In the face of today’s crime, the Mayor of Minneapolis has opted for crisis management: declarations of indignation and promises of institutional investigations. His political function is clear: to act as a buffer to prevent social rage from escalating into a real confrontation with state power. The Mayor pretends to fix everything through administrative channels while federal forces maintain control of the streets.
This containment policy is joined by immigrant advocacy organizations which, in Minneapolis and across the rest of the country, along with union leaderships, recommend invisibility and retreat. Under the pretext of safety, these layers ask workers to hide and rely on slow, ineffective legal maneuvers. By promoting fear, these organizations become functional to the maintenance of the status quo. They refuse to recognize that the only real guarantee of safety is collective action that stops the system that finances and protects the executioners.
The General Strike: The only possible solution – The only thing that can stop this!
The presence of federal troops in our cities is a measure of force. Therefore, it can only be defeated with a superior force: a General Strike.
When rank-and-file workers—documented and undocumented—stop production, transport, and services, the state’s operational capacity collapses. The logistics of state repression depend entirely on the logistics of labor. If trucks do not move, if schools do not open, and if construction sites go silent, the political and economic cost of maintaining the federal occupation becomes unsustainable for the ruling class. There is no institutional solution for a system that kills in the streets; there is only the strength of organized workers halting the machinery of death.
The Thread of Resistance: The Rank-and-File Mark the Way
The proposal for a General Strike is not an abstract theory; it is the logical step of a process of struggle that the rank-and-file have already initiated and validated in the streets.
This past October 24, we demonstrated that rank-and-file workers have the capacity to mobilize independently, breaking the inertia of union offices. That action was the first warning that the base is ready to act on its own when its interests are at stake.
Yesterday, January 6, in San Francisco, we took another step. Workers from various trades, together with artists and Aztec dancers, occupied the space in front of the ICE detention center. They did not go to ask for permission to exist; they went to exercise the power of physical presence and class unity. What happened yesterday in San Francisco is proof that direct confrontation dismantles the narrative of fear that the government and NGOs attempt to impose. Minneapolis must today generalize that experience and take it to every workplace.
Our Demands: Abolition of ICE and Papers for All
The government uses our immigration status to divide and kill us. When we allow them to treat some workers as second-class, we give them the green light to use lethal force in our neighborhoods. We no longer accept promises of partial reforms or negotiations over our lives.
We demand PAPERS FOR ALL. We demand FULL RIGHTS FOR ALL IMMIGRANTS right now. Immediate legalization is not a concession; it is a necessity for the self-defense of the entire working class. Only full equality of rights will eliminate the tool of blackmail that the “migra” uses to repress our struggles and divide our ranks.
Our Call to Action
Socialists Without Borders proposes the following immediate objectives:
- Total rejection of the retreat: Invisibility only facilitates the work of ICE. We call on the workers of Minneapolis to occupy the streets and workplaces.
- Rupture with political collaboration: We demand that labor councils and unions immediately break ties with the mayors and the Democratic and Republican parties that allow the federal occupation. Silence is complicity.
- Organize the General Strike: The urgent task is to form rank-and-file committees to stop the economic activity of Minneapolis. If union leaderships refuse to act, the base must take the initiative independently.
- Abolition of ICE and an immediate end to all deportations: We demand the complete dismantling of the deportation machine.
- Federal forces out: ICE and Border Patrol must get out of our cities and out of the courts immediately. No negotiation, just departure.
- Immediate release of all detainees: We demand the opening of all detention centers and the safe return of our comrades to their families.
- Dismantling of the surveillance apparatus: An end to the tracking and criminalization of our communities.
Work stops to stop the killings. A General Strike is the tool to conquer what has been denied to us for decades.
Out with the migra from Minneapolis and the entire country! Abolish ICE – Stop all deportations! Papers for All and Full Rights now! General Strike in the city and in the country now!
SOCIALISTS WITHOUT BORDERS