US protesters begin nationwide strike as DOJ launches Pretti killing probe 

Protesters in the United States have started a nationwide “no work, no school, no shopping” strike in response to the President Donald Trump administration’s deportation drive.

The strike on Friday, organised by an array of activist groups, comes in the wake of the killing of two US citizens in Minnesota by immigration enforcement agents this month, building on a state-wide strike held last week.

On Friday, the US Department of Justice announced it would open a civil rights probe into the killing of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by border patrol agents on January 24.

However, it has still not moved to investigate possible rights violations of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in her fatal shooting by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on January 7.

United States Representative Ilhan Omar, who represents Minneapolis, was among the elected officials promoting Friday’s strike.

“Solidarity with every single person participating in today’s general strike against ICE’s terror campaign,” Omar wrote on X.

“You’re changing the world,” she said.

Civil rights probe

The killings of Good and Pretti followed the Trump administration’s surge of immigration agents to Minnesota to specifically target alleged fraud in the Somali American community.

The deployment came amid a wider deportation drive that observers say has seen immigration agents use dragnet techniques to reach dramatically increased detention quotas.

Earlier this week, border security chief Tom Homan, officially dubbed the “border czar” by the White House, pledged that enforcement operations would continue in the state, but said increased cooperation with local officials could lead to a “drawdown”.

On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche confirmed that the agency was conducting a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s killing, saying “we’re looking at everything that would shed light on what happened that day and in the days and weeks leading up to what happened”.

The statement came as Trump administration officials, many of whom had initially falsely claimed that Pretti had brandished a gun at immigration agents before he was fatally shot, confirmed the FBI would take over the investigation of the shooting from the Department of Homeland Security.

Blanche did not give further details as to why the department was not also opening a civil rights probe into Good’s killing, saying only that the division does not get involved in every law enforcement shooting and that there have to be circumstances that “warrant an investigation”.

Trump officials had immediately labelled Good a “domestic terrorist” who was trying to run over an ICE agent when she was fatally shot. Video of analyses of the killing indicated that Good was trying to drive away from the officer when she was killed.

Federal authorities have barred local and state authorities from conducting their own independent investigations into the killings.

‘Dissent is democratic’

On Friday, protesters gathered at Howard University in Washington, DC, where they planned to march to the White House.

“I think that it just goes to show how many people are against this, and how this is jeopardising our country,” one student told Al Jazeera.

“I think us all coming together and speaking out against this shows our government that we are not OK with this, and we won’t let it slide,” she added.

Arizona and Colorado, meanwhile, were among states where schools were cancelled in anticipation of mass absences. Dozens of students walked out of morning classes at Groves High School in Birmingham, Michigan.

“We’re here to protest ICE and what they’re doing all over the country, especially in Minnesota,” Logan Albritton, a 17-year-old senior, told the Associated Press news agency. “It’s not right to treat our neighbours and our fellow Americans this way.”

Protests were also planned in major cities like Atlanta, Georgia and Portland, Oregon, where the mayor, Mark Dion, urged people to show their discontent.

“Dissent is Democratic. Dissent is American. It’s the cornerstone of our democracy,” Dion said.

Some businesses, reeling from a recent snowstorm that hit the eastern US last week, found other ways to show their objection to the administration’s actions.

In a post on social media, Otway Bakery in New York said it would remain open and donate half of its proceeds to the New York Immigration Coalition, a local nonprofit.

In a post on X, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani called the strike a “direct challenge to ICE’s brutality”.

“Your courage is inspiring the world. The power is with the people. Solidarity with everyone striking,” he said.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Duchess Harris, a professor of American studies at Macalester College in St Paul, Minnesota, said public pressure can change the administration’s approach, even as other avenues fail.

She pointed to the Justice Department’s move to open an investigation into Pretti’s killing as evidence.

“I think that history teaches us that these moments can either deepen division or become turning points toward reform, and sometimes the division comes before the reform,” Harris said.

“I think that if you study the history of the United States of America … we’ve only made the gains that we’ve made through resistance,” she said.