Could a nationwide strike against ICE be effective?

Labor organizers and businesses around the country have called for a nationwide strike this Friday against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement following the deaths of multiple people at the hands of federal agents. 

The website for the national campaign is asking people to “join a nationwide day of no school, no work and no shopping.” 

The goal of the campaign: Stop funding for ICE. 

The federal agency is already receiving $75 billion from the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill Act and was set to receive an additional $10 billion throughout a Homeland Security bill. However, Senate Democrats voted down the bill on Thursday and said they wouldn’t approve it without reforms to ICE. 

Last weekend, border patrol agents in Minneapolis killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti, sparking outrage throughout the U.S. And earlier this January, an ICE agent killed 37-year-old Renee Macklin Good, another Minneapolis resident. 

Hundreds of unions, student organizations and businesses throughout the U.S. have endorsed the campaign. The shutdown follows last week’s general strike in Minnesota, where businesses closed in response to ICE’s presence in the state and Good’s death. 

“We want people to understand that at any time, in any moment, it could be you and your family and your organization that's under attack,” said Alison Johnson, executive director of the Housing Justice League, an Atlanta-based organization that’s endorsing the strike. 

Across the country, the California-based immigrant and refugee rights advocacy organization SIREN is also endorsing today’s shutdown. 

“Economic power is one of the few levers that communities have,” said Mariam Arif, director of communications and development at SIREN. 

Arif said that ICE and Border Patrol agents need to be held accountable. 

“We're making it very clear to the federal government that it's important for them to cut funding for ICE,” Arif said. “What's happening is causing a lot of harm and instilling a lot of fear in our communities.” 

Businesses are closing their doors in solidarity 

Alex Burbo and Rosie Quasarano, the co-owners of Littlefoot Coffee Roasters in Michigan, decided to close their doors today, despite the financial losses they’ll face.

“We really can't afford to be closed, but because of what's at stake and because of what this stands for, we can't not afford to do this,” Quasarano said. 

Because Burbo and Quasarano are busy running a small business in their day-to-day lives, this is their way of demonstrating support. 

“We're not in the streets protesting everyday with a lot of people out there. And I think it’s a way for us to stand in solidarity,” Burbo said. “We hope that it'll spread awareness and have an impact in some way.”

“Do what you can do” 

Cathy Creighton, a labor expert, said she thinks Friday’s shutdown “could be extremely effective.” 

“It gives people who are frustrated a way to show that this is how we feel and we're doing something about it. It's nonviolent protest, essentially,” said Creighton, director of Cornell University’s Buffalo Co-Lab, a research and teaching center aimed at advancing an equitable economy. 

While it is “a tight turnaround,” now is probably the time to do it while tensions and emotions are high, Creighton said.

Read about the history of general strikes here.

If consumers collectively reduced their consumption by just 5% to 15%, that adds up, said Wharton marketing professor Americus Reed in a Marketplace interview. 

That pullback in spending could pressure companies to speak out on issues that consumers care about, Reed said. 

Some employees may be uncertain about participating in a strike because they’re concerned about the consequences they may face from their employers. 

“Many people feel like they might get terminated or disciplined if they don't show up to work,” Creighton said.

However, Creighton noted that there are still other ways employees can participate in the strike even if they’re worried about missing work. Her advice? 

“Maybe you go to work, but you don't buy any goods or you stand in a protest. Do what you can do. It doesn't have to be everything,” Creighton said. 

Rose Lenehan — an organizer in the Los Angeles Tenants Union, which endorses today’s strike — said there’s less risk to individual employees if a workplace organizes together. 

“I think this is why it's so important that we build up long-term, durable organizations like unions. People are a lot safer doing something like this as a group,” Lenehan said. 

People may face different consequences depending on their job, Lenehan said. “But I think what's happening is so horrifying and so evil that we're hoping that a huge, huge group of people will be willing to take this relatively small risk in their own lives to put some real pressure on these institutions,” Lenehan noted. 

A shutdown demonstrates the power that every person in this country has, Lenehan said.

“It's a way of signaling the seriousness and the depth and the intensity of people's anger and rage about what's happening,” Lenehan said.