Thousands of union members, religious faithful and ordinary citizens are expected to participate in a massive statewide economic strike on Friday that organizers are hoping will bring an end to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Minnesota.

The event, called “A Day of Truth and Freedom,” is being organized by union representatives, faith leaders and community members. They are urging Minnesotans not to go to work, school or go shopping in response to the ongoing federal immigration enforcement surge in the state.

Officials from Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s federation of more than 1,000 affiliated local unions, said Tuesday that they voted to endorse the event to protest “against ICE’s occupation of our communities and the unconstitutional detention of countless innocent Minnesotans, including a significant number of union members.”

“They are indiscriminately targeting Minnesotans of color, regardless of citizenship or immigration status,” Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham said. “Many people are fearful of daily activities like going to work, shopping for groceries and sending their children to school.”

He said union members on Friday would join fellow Minnesotans “to call for ICE to leave our state, no additional funding for ICE, legal accountability for ICE’s killing of Renee Good and for Minnesota’s large corporations to stop cooperating with ICE.”

Good, 37, of Minneapolis, was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross on Jan. 7. The shooting was recorded on several phones, including one held by Ross.

ICE enforcement in the state has intensified since the shooting, causing many workers to fear for their lives, said Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation of the AFL-CIO, which represents more than 175 local unions and 80,000 union members.

Some workers represented by the union have been detained or are afraid to go to work, Gabiou said at a press conference on Monday. “They’ve had to make gut-wrenching, life-altering choices about whether or not they’re going to go to work, so they can put food on the table, or whether they’re going to stay home, and stay safe, and stay alive,” she said.

Stores closing

Businesses and stores across the metro area have announced plans to be closed on Friday. Among them is Mississippi Market Co-op, which has three stores in St. Paul, joining forces with the two Wedge Community Co-ops in Minneapolis, Eastside Food Co-op in Minneapolis, the Seward Community Co-op locations in Minneapolis and River Market Co-op in Stillwater.

“As a cooperative, we believe our shared labor, time, and economic participation are powerful tools,” Mississippi Market officials wrote in a statement shared on social media. “This coordinated statewide pause reflects our commitment to democratic action, mutual responsibility, and concern for our communities. Acting together is one way we live our cooperative values. We stand with those calling for justice and demand ICE leave Minnesota now.”

Dozens of St. Paul restaurants and bars also are planning to close Friday in support of the strike, including 620 Club, the Black Hart of Saint Paul, Caydence Records and Coffee, Claddagh Coffee, Emerald Lounge, Estelle, Hyacinth, J. Selby’s, Lost Fox, Marc Heu Patisserie, Mucci’s Italian, Quixotic Coffee and others.

Craft stores Wet Paint and The Yarnery also plan to close for the day.

Some businesses are modifying their approach: Catzen Coffee, on Grand Avenue, plans to pause its regular business model to open for the day as a community space with free drip coffee.

Holly Weinkauf, the owner of the Red Balloon Bookshop on Grand Avenue in St. Paul, called the decision to shutter her shop on Friday “complex.”

“The biggest thing for us is wanting to be in solidarity with our community, with our neighbors who are being significantly impacted.”

Weinkauf said her employees were unanimous in their support of the closure. “Everyone felt that this was the best way to show up for our community,” she said. “They felt strongly that, whether they were paid or not, we should be closed. I made the choice that people will be paid for that day.”

The whole situation already is taking a financial toll on the Twin Cities, she said, but she thinks Friday’s strike will send a message if enough people participate.

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“I do struggle with the financial impact to our cities that are already struggling with so much,” Weinkauf said. “It is important. It is beyond not normal.”

“We need to suspend the normal order of business and demand the immediate end of ICE actions in our state,” said Lisa Erbes, a co-leader for Indivisible Twin Cities, which is helping organize the event. “We demand that the federal agents who have caused loss of life and abuse to many Minnesota residents be held accountable, and we call for Congress to intervene immediately.”

ICE activity is “violating the Constitutional and human rights of Americans and our neighbors,” Erbes said, and businesses must “do their part in getting ICE out of Minnesota.”

Somali business owners were planning their own news conference Wednesday in Minneapolis to endorse the Friday shutdown.

Reflection, prayer, solidarity

Clergy from around the country are expected to come to Minnesota on Friday to participate in the economic strike.

Asad Zaman, executive director and Imam with the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, spoke at a press conference Tuesday morning at Redeemer Lutheran Church in St. Paul that was organized by St. Paul-based nonprofit ISAIAH.

“Over the last few weeks, Minnesotans have witnessed scenes we imagined do not happen in our country,” Zaman said. “We have witnessed elderly people dragged out of their homes in their underwear. We have witnessed workers being assaulted and kidnapped when they are at work trying to take the garbage out. We have witnessed people being beaten up for the simple act of videotaping and photographing activities. And we have witnessed a mother being murdered moments after she dropped off her child.”

A federal immigration officer films cars around him as people honk and whistle Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2026, in Roseville. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

While the “heavy-handed tactics” appear to be designed to spread fear, Minnesotans “have responded with calm … and peaceful protests, and we intend to continue to do so,” he said.

Clergy are asking for Friday to be a “day of reflection, of prayer, of invocation, and a day of solidarity,” he said. “We ask for all Minnesotans to stay home or to protest peacefully as they are called to do so. We call upon all employers to take the day off so the people can spend a day in solidarity and in quiet prayer and reflection.”

The Minnesota Nurses Association supports participation in the economic strike, but is not calling for a work stoppage or walkout.

“Nurses hold a unique and essential role as caregivers and patient advocates, and MNA encourages members to honor the no-strike provisions of their contracts and report to work as scheduled,” officials said in a statement. “Continuing to provide care is not an absence from this moment — it is an act of solidarity. By showing up for patients while standing together, nurses are protecting Minnesota’s most vulnerable community members in the ways only nurses can.”

The union represents nurses and healthcare workers, including many who are immigrants or have immigrant loved ones directly impacted by ICE enforcement, officials said.

The University of St. Thomas will continue with normal operations on Friday “to serve its students,” according to a statement from the university. “However, employees who wish to participate in this, or any other peaceful demonstration, can work with their managers and request time off to attend.”

A spokesman for Macalester College in St. Paul declined to comment.

A rally, march — and plea

“A Day of Truth and Freedom” will culminate in a 2 p.m. rally and march through downtown Minneapolis. The rally will start at 2 p.m. at The Commons, 425 Portland Ave. S., organizers say.

While the work stoppage will be hard on small businesses, business owners “recognize that this is an emergency,” said Kate Havelin, a spokeswoman for Indivisible Twin Cities. “We have to stop ICE. This is an emergency, and we have to deal with it.”

Community members and neighbors of people detained by ICE protest at a Target store, Monday, Jan. 19, 2026, in West St. Paul. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Organizers of the economic strike are particularly calling on officials at Target, Home Depot, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Hilton and Delta Airlines to “speak out and demand ICE leave Minnesota,” according to Havelin.

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Two employees who were working at the Target in Richfield were arrested inside the store by ICE agents. Both young men were U.S. citizen, she said, and Target officials did not intervene.

“Target and other businesses could post signs saying ICE is not allowed in unless they have a signed warrant,” Havelin said. “There is something businesses can do to protect their workers and to protect their customers because when you are letting ICE wander into your store or hang out or stage in your parking lot, you are not protecting your staff, and you’re not protecting your customers. And that doesn’t seem like good business sense.”

Target officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Minnesota physicians are sounding the alarm over the health care impacts of the surge in federal immigration enforcement activity.

Roughly 50 physicians joined Minnesota Sen. Alice Mann, DFL-Edina, and Sen. Matt Klein, DFL-Mendota Heights, at a press conference Tuesday to share their experiences amid “Operation Metro Surge,” which has flooded the state with as many as 3,000 federal officers.

“I have been a practicing physician for more than 19 years here in Minnesota, and I have never seen this level of chaos and fear in the health care for patients and for our health care teams,” said Dr. Roli Dwivedi, past president of the Minnesota Academy of Family Physicians.

Patients not seeking care

Dr. Erin Stevens, legislative chair for the Minnesota section of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said patients have “expressed to us a feeling of being hunted” and that some are giving birth alone.

“Our patients are missing, canceling or deferring important appointments for prenatal care out of fear of being targeted by immigration officials in their place of care,” she said. “Anecdotally, many of our labor and delivery triage units are seeing lower volumes as a sign that individuals are not seeking out care.”

Dr. Janna Gewirtz O’Brien, president-elect of the Minnesota Chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said parents are “rightfully” scared to come in.

“I’ve seen babies miss their jaundice follow-ups,” she said. “We’ve seen moms that have called and said, ‘My baby is having trouble breathing. I don’t know if I should come in.’ Unacceptable. And we’ve seen a burst appendix that could have been detected days earlier.”

More stories

Dwivedi shared more stories:

• A patient with kidney cancer was a no-show for a scheduled visit. His clinician found out he had been detained and moved to Texas without his medications. Legal intervention eventually got his medications to him, but Dwivedi said it’s unknown whether he is actually taking them.

• A patient with insulin-dependent diabetes stopped coming to the clinic. Dwivedi said it was discovered that the patient was out of both insulin and food, and rationing both without knowing how to adjust insulin.

• A pregnant mother missed her check-up and stopped answering her phone. A nurse went to her home and found her 8 centimeters dilated and laboring alone. Dwivedi said she delivered her baby two hours after the nurse convinced her it was safe to go to the hospital.

• A patient discharged from the hospital missed their follow-up, and Dwivedi said what should have been “a routine wound-care appointment turned into a life-threatening case of sepsis.”

• In Dwivedi’s clinic parking lot, a mother and a son were “forcefully separated” while trying to fill a prescription for a seizure medication, and the trauma of the incident triggered a medical crisis. Dwivedi said the son was rushed to the hospital in the midst of a seizure while his mother was sent to a detention center in Texas.

• One teenager nearly collapsed from starvation, surviving on a single egg in three days after her entire family was detained, Dwivedi said.

“I have dozens of other stories to share, but the bottom line is, is this making America healthy again?” she said.

Hospital staff impacted

Gewirtz O’Brien said Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity is not only affecting patients, but also hospital staff.

“First of all, half of our staff are not coming in at the hospital where I work. Our health care workforce is extremely diverse,” she said. “The people taking care of our patients are Somali. They are Latina, and when we look at the nurses, at the health care assistants and at the physicians, many of us are also from backgrounds that are actively being harmed by the campaign of racial profiling and hate.”

When asked whether there is any legal recourse for ICE activity in health care spaces, or any legislative fixes, Klein, the DFL senator from Mendota Heights, said the Legislature “should at least codify what best practices are for that interaction.”

Mann, the Edina senator, said she thinks there is no guarantee that federal agents “would follow any of them (laws).”

“The problem is that we can pass 110 laws, but ICE is already acting above the law. They are already acting unlawfully and against the Constitution,” she said. “We have Fourth Amendment rights that protect these private spaces, and they don’t care. So we can come up with 110 different laws. Certainly, we have no guarantee that they will follow any of them.”

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By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

YATZIV SETTLEMENT, West Bank (AP) — Celebratory music blasting from loudspeakers mixed with the sounds of construction, almost drowning out calls to prayer from a mosque in the Palestinian town across this West Bank valley.

Orthodox Jewish women in colorful head coverings, with babies on their hips, shared platters of fresh vegetables as soldiers encircled the hilltop, keeping guard.

The scene Monday reflected the culmination of Israeli settlers’ long campaign to turn this site, overlooking the Palestinian town of Beit Sahour, into a settlement. Over the years, they fended off plans to build a hospital for Palestinian children on the land, always holding tight to the hope the land would one day become theirs.

That moment is now, they say.

Smotrich goes on settlement spree

After two decades of efforts, it took just a month for their new settlement, called “Yatziv,” to go from an unauthorized outpost of a few mobile homes to a fully recognized settlement. Fittingly, the new settlement’s name means “stable” in Hebrew.

“We are standing stable here in Israel,” Finance Minister and settler leader Bezalel Smotrich told The Associated Press at Monday’s inauguration ceremony. “We’re going to be here forever. We will never establish a Palestinian state here.”

With leaders like Smotrich holding key positions in Israel’s government and establishing close ties with the Trump administration, settlers are feeling the wind at their backs.

Smotrich, who has been in charge of Israeli settlement policy for the past three years, has overseen an aggressive construction and expansion binge aimed at dismantling any remaining hopes of establishing a Palestinian state in the occupied West Bank.

While most of the world considers the settlements illegal, their impact on the ground is clear, with Palestinians saying the ever-expanding construction hems them in and makes it nearly impossible to establish a viable independent state. The Palestinians seek the West Bank, captured by Israel in 1967, as part of a future state.

With Netanyahu and Trump, settlers feel emboldened

Settlers had long set their sights on the hilltop, thanks to its position in a line of settlements surrounding Jerusalem and because they said it was significant to Jewish history. But they put up the boxy prefab homes in November because days earlier, Palestinian attackers had stabbed an Israeli to death at a nearby junction.

The attack created an impetus to justify the settlement, the local settlement council chair, Yaron Rosenthal, told AP. With the election of Israel’s far-right government in late 2022, Trump’s return to office last year and the November attack, conditions were ripe for settlers to make their move, Rosenthal said.

“We understood that there was an opportunity,” he said. “But we didn’t know it would happen so quickly.”

“Now there is the right political constellation for this to happen.”

Smotrich announced approval of the outpost, along with 18 others, on Dec. 21. That capped 20 years of effort, said Nadia Matar, a settler activist.

“Shdema was nearly lost to us,” said Matar, using the name of an Israeli military base at the site. “What prevented that outcome was perseverance.”

Back in 2006, settlers were infuriated upon hearing that Israel’s government was in talks with the U.S. to build a Palestinian children’s hospital on the land, said Hagit Ofran, a director at Peace Now, an anti-settlement watchdog group, especially as the U.S. Agency for International Development was funding a “peace park” at the base of the hill.

The mayor of Beit Sahour urged the U.S. Consulate to pressure Israel to begin hospital construction, while settlers began weekly demonstrations at the site calling on Israel to quash the project, according to consulate files obtained through WikiLeaks.

It was “interesting” that settlers had “no religious, legal, or … security claim to that land,” wrote consulate staffer Matt Fuller at the time, in an email he shared with the AP. “They just don’t want the Palestinians to have it — and for a hospital no less — a hospital that would mean fewer permits for entry to Jerusalem for treatment.”

The hospital was never built. The site was converted into a military base after the Netanyahu government came to power in 2009. From there, settlers quickly established a foothold by creating makeshift cultural center at the site, putting on lectures, readings and exhibits

Speaking to the AP, Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister at the time the hospital was under discussion, said that was the tipping point.

“Once it is military installation, it is easier than to change its status into a new outpost, a new settlement and so on,” he said.

Olmert said Netanyahu — who has served as prime minister nearly uninterrupted since then — was “committed to entirely different political directions from the ones that I had,” he said. “They didn’t think about cooperation with the Palestinians.”

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Palestinians say the land is theirs

The continued legalization of settlements and spiking settler violence — which rose by 27% in 2025, according to Israel’s military — have cemented a fearful status quo for West Bank Palestinians.

The land now home to Yatziv was originally owned by Palestinians from Beit Sahour, said the town’s mayor, Elias Isseid.

“These lands have been owned by families from Beit Sahour since ancient times,” he said.

Isseid worries more land loss is to come. Yatziv is the latest in a line of Israeli settlements to pop up around Beit Sahour, all of which are connected by a main highway that runs to Jerusalem without entering Palestinian villages. The new settlement “poses a great danger to our children, our families,” he said.

A bypass road, complete with a new yellow gate, climbs up to Yatziv. The peace park stands empty.

By JULIA FRANKEL, Associated Press

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Board of Peace led by U.S. President Donald Trump was originally envisioned as a small group of world leaders overseeing the Gaza ceasefire plan. The Trump administration’s ambitions have ballooned into a more sprawling concept, with Trump extending invitations to dozens of nations and hinting it will soon broker global conflicts, like a pseudo-U.N. Security Council.

More details are expected when Trump participates in an announcement about the Board of Peace on Thursday at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

The board’s charter has not yet been made public, but a draft version obtained by The Associated Press indicates much of the power will be concentrated in the hands of Trump himself. A $1 billion contribution secures permanent membership, the draft say.

Here’s what to know:

The scope of the Board of Peace appears to go beyond Gaza

The Trump administration now seems to envision the Board of Peace with a far broader scope beyond Gaza.

In letters sent Friday to various world leaders inviting them to the board, Trump said it would “embark on a bold new approach to resolving global conflict,” suggesting it could act as a rival to the U.N. Security Council, the most powerful body of the global organization created in the wake of World War II.

A draft charter for the board, obtained from a European diplomat and confirmed by a U.S. official as accurate as of Monday, uses expansive language to describe its ambitions.

It emphasizes “the need for a more nimble and effective international peace-building body” and says “durable peace” requires “the courage to depart from approaches and institutions that have too often failed.” It adds an aim to “secure peace in places where it has for too long proven elusive.”

Under the charter, the chairman — which Trump says will be him — has the power to invite member states, break any ties in a vote, decide how frequently it meets, and create or dissolve subsidiary entities.

The expenses of the Board of Peace will be funded by contributions from member states, which serve three-year terms. Members who pay “more than one billion United States dollars in cash” during their first year can have a permanent place on the board, the draft says.

The draft is under constant revision, is not finalized and may undergo significant changes, according to the U.S. official, who was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

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Countries around the world have been invited

So far, the United Arab Emirates, Morocco, Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Hungary, Argentina and Belarus have agreed to take part.

Invitation letters from Trump also have been sent to Paraguay’s leader Santiago Peña, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Plus, Russia, Israel, India, Slovenia, Thailand and the European Union’s executive arm have said they received invitations.

The Kremlin is now “studying the details” and will seek clarity of “all the nuances” in contacts with the U.S., Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Trump confirmed Monday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin had been invited.

Israel has been asked to join, though it’s not known whether Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accepted the offer, said an Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a behind-the-scenes diplomatic matter.

Netanyahu’s office earlier said the makeup of the board — including Turkey, a key regional rival — wasn’t coordinated with the Israeli government and “is contrary to its policy,” without clarifying its objections. Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has criticized the board and called for Israel to take unilateral responsibility for Gaza’s future.

It was not immediately clear how many or which other leaders would receive invitations.

Some US allies have already declined

France — which is at odds with the Trump administration over its desire to take over Greenland, a self-governing territory overseen by NATO ally Denmark — does not plan to join the Board of Peace so far.

“Yes to implementing the peace plan presented by the president of the United States, which we wholeheartedly support, but no to creating an organization as it has been presented, which would replace the United Nations,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Tuesday.

Told late Monday that French President Emmanuel Macron was unlikely to join, Trump said, “Well, nobody wants him because he’s going to be out of office very soon.”

“I’ll put a 200% tariff on his wines and Champagnes and he’ll join,” Trump told reporters. “But he doesn’t have to join.”

The other committees that will work with the Board of Peace

The White House said an executive board will work to carry out the vision of the Board of Peace.

The executive board’s members include U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan, World Bank President Ajay Banga, and Trump’s deputy national security adviser Robert Gabriel.

The White House also announced the members of another board, the Gaza Executive Board, which, according to the ceasefire, will be in charge of implementing the tough second phase of the agreement. That includes deploying an international security force, disarming Hamas and rebuilding the war-devastated territory.

Nickolay Mladenov, a former Bulgarian politician and U.N. Mideast envoy, is to serve as the Gaza executive board’s representative overseeing day-to-day matters. Additional members include: Witkoff, Kushner, Blair, Rowan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan; Qatari diplomat Ali Al-Thawadi; Hassan Rashad, director of Egypt’s General Intelligence Agency; Emirati minister Reem Al-Hashimy; Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay; and Sigrid Kaag, the Netherlands’ former deputy prime minister and a Mideast expert.

The board also will supervise a newly appointed committee of Palestinian technocrats who will be running Gaza’s day-to-day affairs.

Associated Press writers Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, Matthew Lee in Washington and Catherine Gaschka in Paris contributed to this report.