'Melt the ICE' Organizers Share Lessons Ahead of Week of Action Against ICE

Minneapolis, MN — As the Twin Cities prepares for an upcoming week of action scheduled to take place from February 25 through March 1, organizers with the group behind the initiative, “Melt the ICE,” shared some reflections and lessons on ICE resistance tactics with Unicorn Riot.

Dubbed “Bring the heat, melt the ICE,” the week of action is set to feature protests, walkouts, teach-ins, noise demos, marches, phone banking, and singing resistance among other events scheduled daily until March 1, when a historic tenant union rent strike is planned.

In recent months, thousands of masked federal agents swarmed the streets of the Twin Cities during Operation Metro Surge. ICE, Border Patrol and other federal law enforcement agencies have beaten, threatened, detained and killed people while racially profiling residents who they suspect of being immigrants.

This has been met by a wide-ranging movement of organized resistance that has seen community members across political, class, and generational divides use a myriad of tactics in response to the government’s violence — federal agents shot at least three people in Minneapolis in January, killing two.

Throngs of volunteers organized with the goals of keeping neighbors safe and violent federal agents accountable. Locals have tracked federal agents across the metro area and stood on street corners, outside schools, businesses and the Whipple Federal Building to protest and document ICE activity and alert neighbors to agents’ presence. Mutual aid networks built in the aftermath of past crises have blossomed to meet peoples’ needs under the chaos of Operation Metro Surge. Tactics of resistance have grown and changed as agencies have developed new methods to target the Twin Cities.

Federal agents escort masked individuals carrying luggage out the back of Home2Suites hotel in Minneapolis during a noise demo on Jan. 25, 2026.

Minnesota has found itself, once again, ground-zero for a global resistance movement against racialized state-sanctioned violence. The events, trainings, and panels in the upcoming week of action are being offered by a myriad of organizations and collectives, from immigrant rights groups and tenant unions to workers collectives and political organizations.

“Thousands of Minnesotans from all walks of life have stepped up and taken risks together in ways we didn’t know were possible,” said Melt the ICE organizers, “collectively, we are capable of abolishing ICE.” Read their full statement of lessons and their invitation below.

Organizer Lessons

Below is a statement from “Melt the ICE” organizers. The views and opinions expressed in this statement don’t necessarily represent those of Unicorn Riot.

Since the surge of ICE terror began in Minnesota, we and our neighbors have been organizing nonstop to resist it. It’s been a time of a thousand experiments as life here has transformed in response to the occupation. “Operation Metro Surge” might be coming to an end soon, but there is still work to do. And when it comes to abolishing ICE, we are just getting started.

We’re now preparing to share all we’ve learned in next week’s “Bring the Heat, Melt the ICE” Week of Action. From February 25 to March 1, people from across the country are invited to join locals in the Twin Cities for workshops, skillshares, collective action, and community meals. If you want to meet us in person and help us grow the movement for ICE abolition everywhere, join us. You can find more information at melttheicemn.com.

What follows are our reflections on several promising ICE resistance tactics we’ve tried in Minnesota. We share them in the hopes that they can help readers everywhere prepare for resisting ICE in their own communities—and that they inspire you to come to our Week of Action.

Finding and Following ICE

When community members identify and follow ICE agents on foot or in their vehicles—and especially when they whistle, shout, honk their horns, call for backup, and otherwise draw attention to ICE—vulnerable neighbors are alerted to the danger, and agents are less able to operate efficiently and secretly. These are constitutionally protected actions, despite the fact that two Minnesotans were killed for taking them. It is not without risk, but remember: there is safety in numbers. The rapid growth of coordinated local groups in Minnesota dedicated to responding to ICE is a defining feature of the movement here.

Mutual Aid for Impacted Communities

When your neighbors are unable to move freely without fear of abduction, helping them get to and from work, school, and appointments becomes a necessity. Networks for food and grocery distribution, ride sharing, rent relief, and so much more have blossomed in Minnesota in recent months, keeping thousands of people safe, housed, and fed. The more networks of care and support we can build during periods of relative calm, the easier they will be to leverage during crises.

Neighborhood Organizing

Minnesotans are known for being neighborly, but this recent crisis has made it obvious how far we have to go to build neighborhoods that trust each other enough to communicate, make decisions, and act together. We’ve started small—knocking on the doors of the other tenants in our buildings, hosting potlucks for our blocks—which has allowed us to scale up to larger projects like tenants’ unions and neighborhood assemblies. It is never too early to begin this work, and we wish we’d done more of it before the ICE surge began. We know more of our neighbors’ names, needs, and offerings now than we ever did before, and we are much better for it.

Labor Organizing

On January 23rd’s “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth and Freedom,” labor organizers pulled off the largest work stoppage in the United States in decades, which one in four Minnesotans participated in. The power of the people to shut down the economy is historically one of the most effective weapons against fascism. This coordinated action was only possible because of years of patient organizing by regular workers, documented and undocumented alike. It was a beautiful and important act on the long road towards a labor movement that actually protects and empowers the working class.

Intervention Points and Secondary Targets

In times of crisis, any street corner can become a site of struggle between state forces and the people. Renée Good’s memorial site, Alex Pretti’s memorial site, and the Whipple Federal Building (where ICE is headquartered locally) are just three examples. But strategic research can help identify other targets for protest, especially ICE’s corporate collaborators. Protests against Target, Enterprise Car Rental, Federal Premium Ammunition, and hotels housing ICE agents are just some examples from the movement here.

The most inspiring truth about the fight against ICE here has been its mass and grassroots participation. Thousands of Minnesotans from all walks of life have stepped up and taken risks together in ways we didn’t know were possible. Hyper-local rapid response chats regularly tested Signal’s capacity of 1,000 participants, and everywhere we went we saw neighbors with whistles and vests keeping watch over intersections, schools, workplaces, and community spaces. We love our community, but we know that nothing about the movement here has to be unique to Minnesota. Collectively, we are capable of things we can’t yet imagine. Collectively, we are capable of abolishing ICE.

The organizers invited everyone to the week of action. Per the Melt the ICE MN website, the stated goals of the week of action are to, “share knowledge and skills from the patrol networks that are at the heart of the movement, stage massive protests that politically and economically disrupt ICE (and, importantly, secondary targets that partner with ICE), and teach and replicate Minnesota’s effective anti-ICE and neighborhood organizing tactics across the country.”

Here is a starting list of some of the public actions for the week of action:

Tuesday, Feb. 24 at 2 p.m.: We fight ICE to keep our people in Minnesota. Now we’re fighting to keep them in their homes. Location TBD. – Twin Cities Tenant Union
Wednesday, Feb. 25 at 11 a.m.: Open Mic at the Whipple Federal Building – Minnesota 50501 and Veterans for Peace
Wednesday, Feb. 25: Trainings at First Universalist Church – Know Your Rights 1-2 p.m. & 3-4 p.m., Community Defense Association 2-3 p.m. & 4-5 p.m., Legal Observer 3-5 p.m., Rapid Response 5-7 p.m – DSA Twin Cities
Thursday, Feb. 26 at 9:30 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.: ICE Out of Minnesota at the State Capitol and Unidos Day at the Capitol 2026 in Saint Paul – Monarca and Unidos MN
Thursday, Feb. 26 evening: SEIU and Singing Resistance at Target and Hilton
Thursday, Feb. 26 at 8 p.m. or later: Call for Wide Awakes/Noise Demos at Hiltons and other ICE hotels – Sunrise Movement
Friday, Feb. 27 at 1 p.m.: Student walkout and sit-in at the State Capitol in Saint Paul – student organizers
Friday, Feb. 27 at 3:30 p.m.: March Against ICE Collaborators starting at 12th Street and Nicollet Mall – Worker Solidarity Circle, Black Cat, Red Pine, DSA
Saturday, Feb. 28 at 12 p.m.: Kaleidoscope of Love Arts Mobilization in Powderhorn Park – Christopher Lutter-Gardella
Saturday, Feb. 28 at 2 p.m.: “No Collaboration, Free Our Neighbors” March at Sherburne County ICE Detention Center – In conjunction with the National Day of Action against Detention Centers
Saturday, Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. or later: Call for Wide Awakes/Noise Demos at Hiltons and other ICE hotels – Sunrise Movement
Sunday, March 1 at 9 a.m.: March on Whipple ‘Free our neighbors and Indigenous relatives, Land Back Now’ starting at the Whiskey the Horse Memorial – Melt the ICE
Sunday, March 1 at 10 a.m.: Kids and Families Parade to Support Our Neighbors at 3537 Nicollet Ave – Paper Moon Childcare Cooperative and Neighbors
Daily: Phone Banking for the Twin Cities Tenant Union Rent Strike. Virtual. Sign up here.