On Sunday night it was revealed that a man living in Minneapolis who was kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) thugs on January 6 died on January 14 at the Camp East Montana concentration camp in El Paso, Texas. Multiple outlets reported that Victor Manuel Diaz, 36, from Nicaragua, was found unconscious and unresponsive at the facility last week.

Diaz is at least the third person to die at the sprawling tent camp in south Texas in the last month and a half. On January 3, ICE announced that Geraldo Lunas Campos died at the same facility after “staff observed him in distress.” This purposefully vague statement was aimed at concealing the fact that Lunas Campos died after he was attacked by guards at the facility.

Last week, the Washington Post reported that the El Paso County Office of the Medical Examiner was likely to classify Lunas Campos’ death as a “homicide,” with the preliminary cause of death being “asphyxia due to neck and chest compression.” That is, Lunas Campos did not receive enough oxygen because severe pressure was being applied to his neck and chest.

Santos Jesus Flores, a witness to the incident, told the paper he saw at least five guards fighting with Lunas Campos after the latter refused to enter a segregated cell without his medication. Flores told the Post he saw guards choking the father of three and that he heard Lunas Campos scream, “No puedo respirar,” Spanish for “I can’t breathe,” before falling unconscious.

“He said, ‘I cannot breathe, I cannot breathe.’ After that, we don’t hear his voice anymore and that’s it,” Flores said.

In the first 19 days of 2026, at least six people have already died while in the custody of ICE. These deaths are unfolding amid the ongoing federal occupation of Minnesota, where roughly 3,000 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents have been deployed to carry out mass raids and attacks on the working class as part of the Trump administration’s drive to establish a presidential dictatorship.

In addition to deaths in ICE custody, at least two people have been shot by immigration thugs in Minnesota since the start of the year, including the murder of Renée Nicole Good on January 7 by DHS agent Jonathan Ross. As social opposition mounts, Trump has repeatedly threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act and deploy an additional 1,500 active-duty soldiers from the 11th Airborne Division to the state.

The federal government’s attacks on the working class in Minnesota have provoked mass outrage throughout the state, and especially in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis–St. Paul. In the face of the Democratic Party’s acquiescence to the Trump administration’s attacks, more workers are coming to the conclusion that the only way to counteract these assaults is through mass strike action by the working class.

Outside the Hennepin County Medical Center, World Socialist Web Site reporters spoke with residents and healthcare workers about the ongoing federal occupation and their views on a general strike.

A healthcare worker told the WSWS, “Yeah, I don’t appreciate how they’re causing kids to be scared in their own city, kids that were even born in America. And I don’t like that there’s ICE agents in our hospital. And I appreciate people that are fighting back.

“I think we have to depend on ourselves because our politicians aren’t the ones doing it,” the worker continued. “So I’m glad that there’s enough normal citizens that are standing up and marching and fighting back.”

In response to calls from Democrats, including Governor Walz, that the best way to fight the federal occupation is through the “courts and ballot box,” the healthcare worker said, “We can’t trust that [Trump] will follow the results of the election. We saw what happened in 2020.”

Asked whether he would support a general strike, he responded, “I’m pro [general strike] … anyone that is able to safely strike should absolutely strike.”

A local resident, Reginald, told WSWS reporters, “It’s all total chaos, man. Understand this here, we all, black, white, everybody, Indian, Native, Chinese, I don’t care who you are, we all need to get together, man.”

He added, “I’m 65. I mean, I was back there with the Kennedys, Kings, Malcolm, everybody. This is the worst that I ever seen it.

“It’s about to be war time anytime soon,” he said. “We got to get up, all of us, white, black, everybody.”

Asked what he thought about the working class taking matters into its own hands through the methods of class struggle, specifically a general strike, Reginald replied, “The working class, we need to do that. If we don’t get together and do it, who is going to do it for us? We’ve got to do it for ourselves. The working class.”

He concluded, “They got money to spend on war instead of on us. A lot of people out here dying. There’s a lot of people out there homeless, trying to do the best that we can even in this situation.”

Under conditions of continuing resistance to ICE agents in the communities, high school walkouts and other other signs of popular opposition, particularly after the murder of Renée Nicole Good, a coalition of unions and community groups have called for a “Day of Truth and Freedom” on Friday, January 23, which would include, “No work, no school, no shopping.”

While there is widespread support in the working class for a general strike, the heads of the largest unions in the Twin Cities made clear at a press conference Monday that they had no intention of leading a “strike” in any meaningful sense of the word.

Chelsie Glaubitz Gabiou, president of the Minneapolis Regional Labor Federation AFL-CIO, left no doubt that Friday’s “protest” is about appealing to the same capitalist politicians who have done nothing to stop the Trump administration from terrorizing and murdering residents. “We think that on January 23rd, if we all stand together in solidarity and mass mobilization, we can get the attention of the folks who need to step in and make this chaos stop.”

Greg Nammacher, president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 26, began by noting, “We are here because our local has been directly impacted by this ICE occupation of our communities. We’ve lost over 20 members to these abductions by federal agents, often without warning or due process.”

Nammacher cited the case of a window cleaner in the union who had lived in the US for over 30 years and was more than 70 years old. The worker was kidnapped by ICE when he arrived for his regularly scheduled check-in with the government and was denied access to a lawyer before being deported to Mexico.

While the federal government kidnaps and assaults workers illegally and without due process, Nammacher made clear that the union would not encourage any action that violated “collective bargaining agreements.”

“We are not telling workers to violate those rules,” Nammacher said, adding that the union would “respect individual choices in how people participate on the 23rd.”

Deliberately avoiding the words “general strike,” Nammacher instead appealed to employers to accommodate workers on Friday. “Many employers are partnering with their employees and closing down entirely,” he said, concluding that there was “a way to do this together, with businesses, unions, and workers making a clear statement.”

Internal communications from the Metropolitan Council, whose entire board is appointed by Democratic Governor Tim Walz, make clear the corporate-controlled party is opposed to any collective action by the working class and is relying on the union bureaucracy to prevent it.

In an email sent to union leadership last week and labeled “Reminder Regarding Upcoming Political Protests and Attendance Expectations,” council management warned that while workers may participate in protests “during their personal time,” “unscheduled absences may be subject to progressive discipline, and if there is concerted participation, the provisions of the collective bargaining agreements regarding work stoppages during the life of the contract will apply.”

Cassy Fogale, the assistant director of labor relations for the Metropolitan Council, then issued marching orders to her “dear labor partner(s),” instructing them to “encourage members to remain mindful of attendance expectations.”

The unions are demanding that workers uphold collective bargaining agreements under conditions in which the US president openly flouts the law, occupies an American city, and oversees the kidnapping and murder of residents regardless of citizenship status.

The defense of democratic rights cannot be subordinated to contract technicalities negotiated by the union apparatus to suppress the class struggle. Workers must take the conduct of the struggle into their own hands through the establishment of rank-and-file committees, organized independently of the trade apparatus and the capitalist parties.

These committees, organized in every workplace, should fight for the broadest mobilization of the working class in a real general strike to demand:

• The immediate arrest and prosecution of all those responsible for the murder of Renée Nicole Good
• The withdrawal of all ICE, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) forces from Minneapolis and every other city
• The abolition of these agencies that terrorize immigrant workers and their families
• The immediate release of all detainees held in ICE custody and an end to all raids, renditions and deportations
• Full legal rights and protections for all immigrant workers and their families.
• The withdrawal of all troops from Venezuela and the Caribbean and the dismantling of the US war machine
• Repudiation of all support for Israel and solidarity with the Palestinian people facing an ongoing genocide.