Anti-ICE protests touch every corner of the US as Minnesota officials stand off with the Trump administration

By Elizabeth Wolfe, CNN

(CNN) — Restaurant tables sat empty, business windows went dark and students’ desks were abandoned in several cities across the country Friday amid a nationwide strike in protest of the federal immigration crackdown in Minnesota.

“No work, no school, no shopping” was the organizers’ rally cry, leading to school walkouts, canceled classes and marches in places as distant from the Midwest as California, North Carolina and Maine.

In Minnesota, waves of demonstrators spilled into the streets for the second week in a row following an announcement from the Justice Department saying it would open a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti – the second Minnesotan to be killed by federal agents in the state this year.

The deaths of Pretti and Renee Good have transformed the national conversation on immigration enforcement and appear to have driven a tone shift from the White House in recent days.

But even after White House border czar Tom Homan announced the possibility of a drawdown of agents in Minneapolis, federal and local officials cannot seem to agree on what compromise might look like.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz posted on social media Friday, “Actions speak louder than words,” adding Minnesotans have “yet to see meaningful change.”

Even as the Trump administration works to contain backlash over the shootings in Minnesota, it has created a fresh wave of outrage from free speech and press freedom advocates over the Friday arrests of former CNN anchor Don Lemon and independent journalist Georgia Fort on charges related to their coverage of a church protest.

Here’s the latest:

• Justice Department to investigate Pretti killing: US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced the agency has opened a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Pretti, which will probe whether federal officers violated the law when they disarmed and shot him multiple times. The FBI is taking the lead on the investigation, CNN has reported. Still, Blanche said he did not want to “overstate” the probe. “I don’t want the takeaway to be that there’s some massive civil rights investigation that’s happening,” he said, noting it is a “standard investigation by the FBI.”
• Former CNN anchor vows to fight charges: Lemon and Fort were arrested Friday in connection with their coverage of a protest at a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, earlier this month. An indictment alleges Lemon, Fort and the protesters “oppressed, threatened, and intimidated the Church’s congregants and pastors.” Lemon was charged with conspiring to violate someone’s constitutional rights and violating the FACE Act, which prohibits the use of force or threats to intentionally interfere with someone expressing their First Amendment right to religion. Lemon was released after a court appearance Friday in Los Angeles, after which he promised to fight the charges, saying, “There is no more important time than right now, this very moment for a free and independent media … I will not stop now. I will not stop ever.”
• “Do we have a constitution or not?”: Fort asked after she was released from detention Friday. The arrest of journalists on charges related to doing their job has drawn widespread outrage and condemnation from free press and free speech advocacy groups, as well as several politicians. CNN in a statement said Lemon’s arrest “raises profoundly concerning questions about press freedom and the First Amendment.”
• Lawsuit challenges ICE warrant policy: Immigrant rights advocates have filed a lawsuit in Boston challenging an ICE policy allowing its officers to enter homes without a judicial warrant. In the past, ICE agents have generally been required to get a warrant signed by a judge before they could enter private homes and businesses. But a whistleblower complaint revealed an ICE official told agents in a memo last May they could use administrative warrants instead.
• Will New York ban police collaboration with ICE?: Gov. Kathy Hochul, who has been a sharp critic of DHS immigration operations, said she is proposing legislation which would prohibit cooperation agreements between local police departments and ICE. The governor is targeting a program called 287(g), which allows ICE to authorize state and local law enforcement to carry out some immigration enforcement duties. DHS data shows there are 14 New York agencies with 287(g) agreements in place. The proposal is likely to pass the Democrat-controlled state legislature.

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CNN’s Taylor Romine, Kara Scannell, Gloria Pazmino, Holmes Lybrand, Brian Stelter, Emma Tucker and Zoe Sottile contributed to this report.