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Minnesota

Minnesota

Worker Organizer Abducted By Federal Agents in Minnesota

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Federal immigration agents have abducted Eustaquio Orozco Verdusco, a workers’ rights organizer well known in Minnesota for fighting wage theft and labor trafficking. 

His attorney and son say he is currently held at the Cibola County Correctional Center in New Mexico, run by CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison companies in the United States. For the first time, his family is going to the press as community support for his release is swelling. “All we care about is having him back with us, at home in Minnesota,” his son, Gerardo Orozco Guzman, told me. “That’s all we want.”

Our interview followed a judge’s ruling in the District Court of Minnesota on Wednesday that denied and dismissed Orozco Verdusco’s habeas corpus petition challenging his unlawful detention.

Minnesota

The Minnesota Target Workers Who Walked Out Against ICE

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The American Prospect. Rob doesn’t want anyone else to experience what his co-workers at the Target store in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield went through. On January 8, federal immigration agents violently tackled and detained two Target workers during their shift. Rob was on the clock that day, and while he did not see the abductions, he did witness the aftermath. “We had a lot of people who were scared,” says Rob, who is using a pseudonym to protect him from retaliation.

Minnesota

Poll Shows Massive Participation in Minnesota Shutdown Against ICE

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Roughly one in four Minnesota voters either participated in the January 23 day of shutdown and protest against ICE, or have a loved one who did, according to new polling data. 

Of those participants, 38% percent stayed off the job, either because they did not go to work, or because their employer closed for the day of action. The data does not distinguish between those who made the choice to stay out, and those who saw their workplaces close. (Some workplaces were shuttered that day due to worker pressure.)

The poll was commissioned by the May Day Strong coalition, a network of local and national unions and community organizations, and was conducted by polling firm Blue Rose Research. McKenzie Wilson, director of external affairs and message strategy at the firm, explained that researchers surveyed 1,940 Minnesotans who voted in 2024.

Minnesota

Alex Pretti’s Killer May Be Part of His Union

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and Jewish Currents. On January 24th, Border Patrol agents shot and killed Veterans Affairs ICU nurse and ICE observer Alex Pretti in Minneapolis—firing at least 10 shots within five seconds while Pretti was pinned to the ground. About six hours later, Pretti’s labor union, the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), released a statement about his murder. “We have received confirmation that a member of AFGE Local 3669, Alex J. Pretti, was the man killed during the incident,” it read. But while referring to Pretti’s killing as a “tragedy,” the statement fell short of condemning the federal immigration agents behind the shooting.

Minnesota

How One Minnesota Union Is Helping Members Survive the Federal Siege

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This article is a publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. MINNEAPOLIS, MINN.—When Feben Ghilagaber delivers food to fellow union members hiding from the thousands of federal immigration agents swarming Minnesota, the lights to their homes are often off when she gets there. 

“People are scared for their lives,” she tells me as we drive to UNITE HERE Local 17 office in Minneapolis, a labor union representing more than 6,000 workers in hotels, stadiums and convention centers in the Twin Cities metro area. It also represents many of the workers at the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport and Ghilagaber, an airport food service worker and steward for the union, says the people she delivers food to “are sitting in the dark.”

“ICE,” she says, “is attacking everybody.”

The majority of Local 17’s members are immigrants and/or people of color, which puts them at risk of being detained for merely being in public where border patrol and ICE are present. And they’re present everywhere. 

Under its so-called Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration has deployed thousands of federal agents to Minnesota, where they have raided homes, schools and daycares, detaining school-aged children and violently attacking many of those resisting their presence. An ICE agent shot and killed poet and mother, Renee Good, on January 7 and she has become a rallying cry for the efforts to push ICE out of the area.

Midwest

How Trump’s Immigration Crackdown Chills Organizing and Erodes Conditions for All Workers

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and The Nation. In late 2025, federal immigration authorities detained a non-union janitor who had recently—and publicly—accused contractors for Minnesota’s Ramsey County of mass wage theft. “Despite a bunch of intimidation and threats to his job by his non-union employer, who was trying to pay less, he came forward at a press conference launching these allegations,” Greg Nammacher, the president of SEIU Local 26, told me. 

The courage of this worker, who has been released but is now in deportation proceedings, played a vital role moving the case forward, according to the union, and it supported a similar wage theft case against Hennepin County contractors, which was also announced at the press conference where he spoke. The effort delivered for workers. The case against Hennepin County contractors resulted in the disbursal of nearly $400,000 in back pay to more than 70 subcontracted workers in December 2025, and the case against Ramsey County contractors is ongoing and has already led to some internal policy changes. 

When someone who fought so successfully for workers—both immigrants and non-immigrants—is detained, “it sends a chill through all the workers in the non-union companies that are trying to stand up and get their rights enforced,” Nammacher said.

Minnesota

“We Are Facing a Tsunami of Hate”: Amid ICE Crackdown, Unions and Community Groups Call for Minnesota Shutdown in 10 Days

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This article is a joint publication of Workday Magazine and In These Times. Unions and community groups gathered in front of the Hennepin County Government Center in downtown Minneapolis, Minnesota this morning to announce a day of “no work, no school, no shopping” on January 23 to oppose the ferocious assault on the state by federal immigration authorities. “We are facing a tsunami of hate from our own federal government,” Abdikarim Khasim, a Minnesota rideshare driver, told the crowd. “We’re going to shut it down on the 23rd. We’re going to overcome this.” 

JaNaé Bates Imari, representative of the church Camphor Memorial UMC., told the crowd that the joint action will be “a day when every single Minnesotan who loves this state—who loves the idea of truth and freedom—will refuse to work, shop and go to school.

Community

Minnesota Teachers and Grocery Workers: ICE Out of Our Workplaces

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Teachers, families, community groups, and grocery workers are calling for federal immigration authorities to stay out of their workplaces, and out of Minnesota, one day after an ICE agent shot and killed Minneapolis resident and mother Renee Good. 

“On the day of Good’s murder, federal agents deployed chemical irritants and abducted an educator overseeing safe dismissal from Roosevelt High School grounds (who has since been released),” reads a January 8 statement from Minneapolis Families for Public Schools, TakeAction Minnesota, Minneapolis Federation of Educators, and ISAIAH, a coalition of educator unions, workers, and community organizations. “ICE is putting our freedoms, our futures, and our lives at risk,” the statement continues. “Immigrant families, allied families, and educators are standing together to say ICE OUT now,” continues the statement, which announces a press conference the following morning. Laura Proescholdt, communications director for TakeAction Minnesota, emailed Workday Magazine a list of the coalition’s demands. They include, “ICE out of our schools, ICE out of Minnesota.