A VAST network of trade unions, progressive organisations and clergy urged Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and the shops today to protest against deportation raids in the state.

Minneapolis and its twin city St Paul have seen daily protests since Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) officer on January 7.

Federal law enforcement officers have surged in the city for weeks and have repeatedly clashed with community members and activists who track their movements.

“After weeks of living under the heavy weight of this racist campaign of terror by Ice agents that have torn apart families, brutalised and murdered people, today the working class of Minnesota are standing up and refusing to go to work, to go to school, to shop,” Kieran Knutson of the Communication Workers of America union told Democracy Now today.

“For once, we’re going to flex our muscles that contribute to this society every day. Today, we’re going to show our power.”

Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 groups organising the strike, said: “We really, really want Ice to leave Minnesota, and they’re not going to leave Minnesota unless there’s a tonne of pressure on them.

“They shouldn’t be roaming any streets in our country just the way they are now.”

Organisers hoped today’s mobilisation will be the largest co-ordinated protest action to date, with a march in central Minneapolis planned for this afternoon — after the Star published this story.

The National Weather Service warned of dangerously cold weather and today the temperature in Minneapolis was -29°C with a wind chill of -40°C.

Ms Havelin compared the presence of immigration enforcement to the winter weather warnings.

“Minnesotans understand that when we’re in a snow emergency we all have to respond, and it makes us do things differently,” she said. 

“And what’s happening with Ice in our community, in our state, means that we can’t respond as business as usual.”

More than a hundred small businesses in the Twin Cities, largely coffee shops and restaurants, said they would close in solidarity or donate part of their profits, organisers said.

Somali businesses especially have lost sales during the deportation surge as workers and customers, fearing abduction, stay at home.

Some businesses are choosing to close in solidarity with the protesters rather than the “unscheduled interruption” of having agents apprehend staff, said Luis Argueta of Unidos MN, a civil rights group.

Many schools were planning to close today, but cited different reasons. The University of Minnesota and the St Paul public school district said there would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold.

Minneapolis Public Schools were scheduled to be closed “for a teacher record keeping day.”

Clergy planned to join the march as well as hold prayer services and fasting, according to a delegation of representatives of faith traditions including Buddhist, Jewish, Lutheran and Muslim.

Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organisation Faith in Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, DC.

“We want Ice out of Minnesota,” he said. “We want them out of all the cities around the country where they’re exercising extreme overreach.”

Mr Royster said at least 50 of his network’s faith-based organisers were joining the protest. About 10 were traveling from Los Angeles while others from the same group planned a solidarity rally in California, said one of the organisers there.

“It was a very harrowing experience,” said the Reverend Jennifer Gutierrez of the large immigration enforcement operation in Los Angeles last year.

“We believe God is on the side of migrants.”