Thousands of demonstrators braved bitter cold to march through the streets of Minneapolis on Friday demand an end to President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in their city, part of a wider “ICE OUT!” show of defiance that organisers billed as a general strike.

On a day that started with temperatures as low as minus 20 Fahrenheit (minus 29 Celsius), organisers said as many as 50,000 people took to the streets, a figure that Reuters could not verify, as Minneapolis police did not respond to a request for a crowd estimate. Many demonstrators later gathered indoors at the Target Centre, a sports arena with a capacity of 20,000 that was more than half full.

Organisers and participants said scores of businesses across Minnesota closed for the day and workers headed to street protests and marches, which followed weeks of sometimes violent confrontations between US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and protesters opposed to Trump’s surge.

Just a day earlier, Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis in a demonstration of support for ICE officers and to ask local leaders and activists to reduce tensions, saying ICE was carrying out an important mission to detain immigration violators.

In one of the more dramatic protests, local police arrested dozens of clergy members who sang hymns and prayed as they knelt on a road at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport in calling for Trump to withdraw the 3,000 federal law enforcement officers sent to the area.

Organisers said their demands included legal accountability for the ICE agent who shot dead Renee Good, a US citizen, in her car this month as she monitored ICE activities.

They ignored commands to clear the road by officers from local police departments, who arrested and zip-tied dozens of the protesters, who did not resist, before putting them onto buses. Reuters observed dozens of arrests, and organisers said about 100 clergy members were arrested.

Faith in Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that helped organise the protest, said the clergy were also calling attention to airport and airline workers who they said had been detained by ICE at work. The group asked that airline companies “stand with Minnesotans in calling for ICE to immediately end its surge in the state.”

Across the state, bars, restaurants and shops were closing for the day, organisers said, in what was intended to be the largest display yet of opposition to the federal government’s surge.

“Make no mistake, we are facing a full federal occupation by the United States government through the arm of ICE on unceded Dakota land,” Rachel Dionne-Thunder, vice president of the Indigenous Protector Movement, told the arena crowd.

She was one of a series of indigenous, religious, labor and community leaders to speak, calling on ICE to withdraw and for a thorough investigation into Good’s shooting.

“We’ve seen an agency that seems to have no guardrails, as they have caused this pain and suffering all across Minnesota,” said Lizz Winstead, a comedian and abortion rights advocate who served as host.

TRUMP ELECTED TO CRACK DOWN

Trump, a Republican, was elected in 2024 largely on his platform of enforcing immigration laws with a promise to crack down on violent criminals, saying Democratic President Joe Biden was too lax in border security.

But Trump’s aggressive deployment of federal law enforcement into Democratic-led cities and states has further fueled America’s political polarisation, especially since the shooting of Good, the detention of a US citizen who was taken from his home in his underwear, and the detention of school children, including a 5-year-old boy.

Miguel Hernandez, a community organiser who closed his business Lito’s Bakery for the day, put on four layers, wool socks and a parka before heading out to protest.

“If this were any other time, no one would’ve gone out,” he said, bracing for the weather. “For us, it’s a message of solidarity with our community, that we see the pain and misery that’s going on in the streets, and it’s a message to our politicians that they have to do more than grandstand on the news.”

The numerous Fortune 500 companies that call Minnesota home have refrained from public statements about the immigration raids. Minneapolis-based Target, which has come under fire in the last year for retreating from its public commitment to diversity policies, has faced more criticism for not speaking out about activity at its stores. State lawmakers have pressed the company for details of its guidance to employees if and when ICE officers show up at stores.

The company declined a request for comment. Reuters also contacted Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, Medtronic, Abbott Laboratories, Best Buy, Hormel, General Mills, 3M and Fastenal. None immediately responded to requests for comment.

“The silence from the corporations in the state is deafening,” Winstead told the arena crowd.