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Creative Resistance: Lessons from Minneapolis, Minnesota

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Introduction

The people of Minneapolis and Saint Paul in Minnesota, USA, have organised powerful resistance to intensive ICE operations (December 2025 – February 2026). Volunteer networks in the Twin Cities have taken significant action to protect people and push back against Immigration and Customs Enforcement brutality, which has included the murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

This article outlines some of the creative tactics used in Minneapolis, which have:

  • Disrupted ICE operations and protected people
  • Reduced the morale of ICE agents – including how much sleep they can get!
  • Demonstrated solidarity
  • Gained media attention
  • Spread a compelling story of injustice and resistance
  • Boosted the morale of protesters and community members
  • Made space for joy and healing
  • Engaged people who may not have participated in collective action before
  • Provided ways for people to contribute their skills, creativity and humor

We have also included links to guides for those who would like to try some of these creative tactics: either in resistance to ICE and the broader Trump authoritarian agenda, or for any justice issue in any place.

If you have examples you would like to add to this article contact the Commons librarians.

Examples

Signs

Photograph of a sign reading 'You Betcha! We Melt ICE Every Day'. The sign is in a window which reflects a snowy street.

Minneapolis — I came here expecting to see a city gripped with anger, fear, division, and grief. Sure, one can easily find that, as arrests and protests increase and threats and helicopters hover. At street level, however, other feelings dominate: joyful resistance, community spirit, playful humor, and upper Midwestern stubbornness. – Lynn Hicks

Minneapolis displays the joy of resistance, Lynn Hicks, True Justice, 20 January 2026

I’ve always viewed art as a tool in the toolbox of organizing that’s often overlooked. But when you look back in history, every single movement for justice has had things in common—including the prolific nature of artwork as a narrative messaging tool. – Sean Lim

The Art of an Anti-ICE Protest, Mpls St Paul, 28 January 2026

Want to make your own signs and other visual props? Check out:

Banners

Wrecktangle Pizza drapes massive anti-ICE banners at Lyn-Lake intersection, Bring Me The News, 4 February 2026

Photo: Brad Sigal, from In The Twin Cities, A Massive Strike Against ICE, Labor Notes, 27 January 2026

Want to use banners for impact? Check out:

Singing

Singing Resistance is building a mass movement of singers to protect and care for our communities in the face of rising authoritarianism. We are grounded in love, nonviolence, and solidarity. In the context of escalating violence towards our communities and federal invasions of our cities and towns, we sing because song is an antidote to fear, song helps us connect to each other, and through song we can name and protect what we hold sacred. We sing publicly in the streets for the sake of solace, strength, solidarity, to voice our dissent, and to refuse cooperation with oppressive and autocratic forces. – Singing Resistance Toolkit

Thousands sing in the streets of Minneapolis to protest ICE, Good Good Good, 4 February 2026

@nowthisimpact

Thousands of Minnesotans gathered outside hotels where ICE and Border Patrol have been staying to sing to them, encouraging agents to quit and stop the ICE terror on their streets. Song by: Annie Schlaefer & @singingresistancetc on IG (via: Reddit / CorleoneBaloney)

♬ original sound – NowThis Impact – NowThis Impact


How a MN group resists ICE through song, CNN 26 January 2026

Want to sing for justice? Check out:

Music

Minnesota Music Resistance

The Minneapolis brass band bringing joy amid grief: ‘When people see us playing, it gives them hope’, The Guardian, 15 February 2026

Brass Solidarity: Music for the Movement

Want to use music as part of your activism? Check out:

Noise Protest

(Noise protests are) very cathartic. It’s so easy to fall into this idea of, ‘well, this is the federal government. There’s nothing that an individual can do’. But at these noise demos, you are directly in front of your target. ICE is sleeping right in that building. – Sasmit, member of University of Minnesota Students for a Democratic Society 

Sonic warfare: How musicians are using ‘noise protests’ against ICE, Dazed

Art Sled Rally

See the Protest Art, Colorful Cardboard, and Fierce Joy of the 2026 Powderhorn Art Sled Rally, Racket

This year, the Art Sled Rally took place amid ICE’s ongoing invasion of the Twin Cities… It’s a beautiful mash-up of the Minneapolis spirit: protest, art, community, color, laughter, creativity, activism. – Racket

Want to try something similar? Check out:

Craftivism

Hand-knit red caps are just one example of the explosion of creative expression inspired by the Trump administration’s deadly crackdown on immigrant communities across the US. Online communities for hobbyists, artists, crafters and collectors have seen an extraordinary outpouring of anti-ICE messages, especially after the killings of Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Scrolling through normally apolitical message boards and social media feeds, it can feel as if the entire internet is united around a single message: “Fuck ICE.” – Julia Carrie Wong

‘Rage knitting’ against the machine: the hobbyists putting anti-ICE messages into crafts, The Guardian, 29 January 2026

How Activists Are Embracing Craft as a Tool of Anti-ICE Resistance, artnet. Quilt photo from Jennifer H., shared on Reddit.

Keen to use craft to send a message? Check out:

Faith Activism

What is unfolding in Minneapolis is frightening, but the response of its people has been inspiring. Between delivering groceries and supplies to those afraid to leave their homes, to roaming the streets with whistles strung around their necks so they can alert others when ICE is spotted, to rabbis and Jewish activists keeping watch outside churches so Latinx communities can worship together, to providing emotional support — the work of care, mutual aid and resistance, week after week, should fill us all with pride. – Ariel Gold

Faith activists are praying with their feet in Minneapolis, Waging Nonviolence, 28 January 2026

I believe our medicines and our prayers are our greatest strength, and that gives me courage to be here. When we come together in prayer and in solidarity with each other, we’re protected. – Nicole Matthews

Jingle dress dancers hold healing ceremonies at memorial sites in south Minneapolis, MPR News, 2 February 2026

Want to bring more spirit to your action? Check out:

Analysis

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  • Organisation: The Commons Library
  • Location: US
  • Release Date: 2026

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