Category World News

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.

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The US and Iran both say they want a diplomatic solution to their standoff and regional players are increasingly intervening, but a growing military buildup and conflicting accounts about the state of negotiations are casting doubt on the possibility.

The United States Department of Justice has released a massive new tranche of investigative files related to the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

At a news conference on Friday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said the department was releasing more than 3 million pages of documents, as well as more than 2,000 videos and 180,000 images.

He said the release means the department has met a legal requirement passed by Congress last year.

“Today’s release marks the end of a very comprehensive document identification and review process to ensure transparency to the American people and compliance with the act,” Blanche said.

But the administration of President Donald Trump has faced scrutiny over the pacing of the files’ release and redactions within the published documents.

Trump himself has been confronted with questions about his past relationship with Epstein, who cultivated a roster of influential contacts.

On Friday, Blanche dismissed rumours that the Justice Department had sought to protect powerful individuals, including Trump.

While Trump has acknowledged a years-long friendship with the financier, he has denied any knowledge of the underage sex-trafficking ring that prosecutors say Epstein led.

“There’s this built-in assumption that somehow there’s this hidden tranche of information ‌of men that we know about, that we’re covering up, or that we’re not, we’re choosing not to prosecute,” Blanche said. “That is not the case.”

The Justice Department had initially missed a December 19 deadline set by Congress to release all the files.

The publication is the result of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was published in November with bipartisan support to force the release of all federal documents pertaining to Epstein.

In response to the law, the Justice Department said it had tasked hundreds of lawyers with reviewing the records to determine what needs to be blacked out to protect the identities of sexual abuse victims.

Blanche said the department withheld any materials that could jeopardise ongoing investigations or expose potential victims.

All women in the Epstein files other than Ghislaine Maxwell — an ex-girlfriend who was also convicted of child sex trafficking — have been obscured from the videos and images being released on Friday, according to Blanche.

In the past, some of Epstein’s victims have slammed the department’s redactions and withholdings as excessive, with critics pointing out that previously published documents were among the files blacked out.

In December, the Justice Department released an initial batch of Epstein-related documents, though it fell short of the full publication mandated by November’s law.

That release, however, included previously unreleased flight logs showing that Trump flew on Epstein’s private jet in the 1990s. Those trips appeared to happen before Trump has said the pair had a falling out.

The recent releases also contain images showing prominent individuals like tech billionaire Bill Gates, former Trump adviser Steve Bannon, director Woody Allen and former US President Bill Clinton socialising with Epstein, sometimes on his private island.

To date, none of the individuals depicted in the releases have been charged with any crimes, outside of Maxwell.

Following her conviction in 2021, she is serving a 20-year prison sentence, though she has continued to deny any wrongdoing.

Epstein died from apparent suicide in a New York jail cell in August 2019, a month after he was indicted on federal sex trafficking charges.

He had previously been convicted of state sex-offender charges in Florida in 2008 as part of a plea deal that was widely slammed for its leniency. He spent a total of 13 months in custody.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Roberts Giuffre, also filed lawsuits against him, accusing him of arranging sexual encounters with politicians, business titans, academics and other influential figures while she was underage.

All of the men identified by Giuffre, who died in April 2025 in Australia, have denied the allegations.

Among the people she accused was Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly known as Prince Andrew, who denied the claims but settled a lawsuit filed by Giuffre for an undisclosed sum.