Documenting the repertoire of contentious performances in Minnesota and the wider US in response to ICE’s ‘Operation Metro Surge’

This paper outlines and critically analyses the repertoires of contentious performance used by activists in Minnesota and beyond following a surge in federal immigration enforcement in the United States (‘Operation Metro Surge’). We utilised labour action trackers and online news articles to create an event catalogue of this episode of collective action. Analysis reveals a broad coalition of students, labour organizations, and other social movement groups collectively acted through demonstrations, protests, marches, strikes and rallies to protest federal immigration enforcement. We pay special attention to the role of strike action in this episode of contention. While media sources referred to some of these actions as a general strike, findings show that workers did not engage in a general strike that caused significant damage to multiple sectors of the economy. Rather, many workers participated in a political strike against government policy and enforcement. The argument presented in this paper advances literature on contentious performance by workers through broadening our understanding of political strikes in the US. In doing so, we critically distinguish between general, political, and economic strikes, and situates this type of activity in comparative perspective.