In January 2026, masked paramilitaries deployed to Minnesota by the Federal regime summarily killed two peaceful legal observers in broad daylight: Renee Good and Alex Pretti. As immortalized by Bruce Springsteen’s immediately top-selling song “Streets of Minneapolis," these killings occurred in the context of repeated and severe abuses by the occupying military force, including evidently assault, battery, unreasonable search and seizure, and kidnapping. Rather than retreat in fear – and like people in California, Illinois, North Carolina, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, DC, and elsewhere who also have faced the brutality of the roving Federal paramilitary force – Minnesotans have unified to support each other and their neighbors regardless of race, religion, economic status, cultural background, and national origin. As an example, nearly 75,000 Minnesotans marched in downtown Minneapolis on January 23, 2026 in temperatures of approximately negative 20 degrees to demand an immediate end to the violent and discriminatory siege by several thousand paramilitary agents. On January 30, 2026, a similarly large group marched in downtown Minneapolis in similarly frigid weather – as did millions in 300 actions across all 50 States during a national shutdown to insist that the paramilitary violations of civil rights and civil liberties end immediately.
Unions and nonprofit community groups have been at the center of this inspiring solidarity to protect people’s rights in peaceful and sustained ways, building on a long history of opposing policies and actions that seek to divide. Put simply, these civil society organizations recognize that an injury to one is an injury to all. Consequently, unions and nonprofit community groups have, among other actions, organized their members and the general public to provide know-your-rights trainings and related logistical support to monitor and document paramilitary activities and to provide comprehensive mutual aid in response.
Unions and nonprofit community groups also have legal strategies to counteract the expanding Federal abuses of power. For example, the AFL-CIO and other unions filed amici curiae briefing to challenge the Federal administration’s recent and draconian changes to immigration policies. In addition, Minnesota’s educator union recently sued the Federal regime to stop so-called immigration enforcement near schools, which has caused attendance rates to drop significantly, otherwise disrupted the teaching and learning environment, and terrorized entire communities. The union’s lawsuit asserts that the Federal regime’s policy change allowing for immigration “enforcement” at schools, houses of worship, and other sensitive locations is arbitrary and capricious and implemented without notice-and-comment rulemaking in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. In addition, nonprofit community groups recently obtained a temporary restraining order issued by the Federal court in Minnesota against the Federal administration because, as the court reasoned, "[r]efugees have a legal right to be in the United States, a right to work, a right to live peacefully — and importantly, a right not to be subjected to the terror of being arrested and detained without warrants or cause in their homes or on their way to religious services or to buy groceries. *** At its best, America serves as a haven of individual liberties in a world too often full of tyranny and cruelty. We abandon that ideal when we subject our neighbors to fear and chaos." Relatedly, Minnesota and its two largest cities have sued the Federal regime for apparently violating the First Amendment and Tenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and other core legal authority by engaging in widespread racial profiling while commandeering local resources and using illegal and violent tactics against both immigrants and native-born residents
