VCPL Statement in Solidarity with Minneapolis
By the Coordinating Committee of the Vermont Coalition for Palestinian Liberation (VCPL)
January 22, 2026
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has occupied Minnesota's Twin Cities, taking aim at working people regardless of immigration or citizenship status. Armed, masked, and often in civilian clothes and unmarked cars, ICE agents have terrorized the working class of Minneapolis and St. Paul, arresting people in their homes and on the streets. They killed Renee Good and have assaulted others. They have repeatedly abducted and brutalized union members.
VCPL has worked to expose and end Israeli apartheid, occupation, and genocide in Palestine. What happens there is inextricably tied to what happens here in the US. While Washington backs apartheid in Palestine, it enforces apartheid against migrants here at home, criminalizing millions of people as a cheap labor force with no civil or union rights. From Minnesota to Vermont and across the country, it oppresses migrants through racial profiling, arbitrary detention, and denial of public services.
One of the targets of US apartheid has been Palestinians. ICE has arrested Palestinians and other immigrant students, including Mohsen Mahdawi and Rumeysa Ozturk whose court cases were heard in Vermont. They detained and tried to deport them for exercising their constitutionally-protected rights to speak out and organize in support of Palestine’s struggle for self-determination.
Our movement won their freedom. We must do the same for all those under attack. We all have a stake in this struggle for migrant justice. If they can take anyone’s rights away, they will take all of our rights away. As the old labor slogan teaches us, an injury to one is an injury to all.
The frontline of this struggle against ICE is now the Twin Cities. Unions, faith groups, and other working class organizations have announced a Day of Truth and Freedom on January 23rd, calling on residents not to go to school, work, or shop. They are demanding:
1. ICE must leave Minnesota now.
2. The officer who killed Good must be held legally accountable.
3. No additional federal funding for ICE in the upcoming budget.
VCPL stands in solidarity with the multiracial, multinational working class of the Twin Cities and its fight for peace, freedom, and justice. We echo their demands for accountability, an end to ICE funding, and a stop to federal agents’ attacks on migrants and workers. In Vermont, VCPL calls for the closure of Williston’s Law Enforcement Support Center, which runs ICE’s national snitch line, and its National Criminal Analysis and Targeting Center, which monitors social media.
We call for unity and solidarity against ICE and its attacks on migrants, Palestinians, and workers across the country. We must follow the example of the Twin Cities, defend our communities against ICE agents, and pledge to mobilize against an ICE occupation of our state. To prepare, VCPL encourages all organizations and unions to join us in support of Migrant Justice’s “No Secret Police” information campaign to defend migrant's rights in this state. It is time to put an end to apartheid here and in Palestine. None of us are free, until all of us are free.