This story originally appeared in Workday Magazine on Jan. 20, 2026. It is shared here with permission.
On Jan 18, Twin Cities postal workers with the National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) Branch 9 gathered at the post office on Lake Street in South Minneapolis to demand ICE discontinue its use of postal property to stage activity and demand that ICE leave Minnesota. The crowd of over 200 union members and allies marched down Lake Street to the block where Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agent Jonathon Ross a few weeks before.
Speakers at the rally showed their support for the upcoming January 23 shutdown planned across Minnesota. Dozens of other Minnesota unions and workers centers have joined the call for a work-stoppage on Friday, despite contracts with no-strike clauses.
Emmet Bongaarts, a postal worker and NALC Branch 9 member said postal workers have been first-hand witnesses and responders to ICE’s “reign of terror” across Minnesota in recent weeks. Bongaart’s route is through the Central neighborhood in South Minneapolis, close to where Renee Good was killed. “People can’t leave their homes, businesses lock their doors,” he said of the environment of fear that ICE has created.
Chris Pennock, a postal worker and vice president of NALC Branch 9, said that postal workers are seeing the effects of ICE’s activity on the communities they serve. “People are scared to shovel the snow, to grab a package, no one deserves to be treated this way.” Pennock continued, “Letter carriers stand with immigrants, not ICE.”
The marchers chanted, “Protect our routes, get ICE out,” in support of letter carriers and postal workers organizing to end ICE activity in Minnesota.
Last month, the NALC rank and file chapter held a similar march on December 14 where workers demanded ICE not use postal office property to stage their activity after workers witnessed ICE staging in a south Minneapolis postal office parking lots.
The rally took place one day after right-wing provocateur, streamer, and January 6 rioter Jake Lang attempted a white supremacist, anti-Islam march in downtown Minneapolis that was shut down by counter-protesters. Lang’s march reportedly only drew about 10 people and was met with several thousands of counter-protesters. The postal workers’ rally took place the following day in colder and snowier conditions, and drew over two hundred people.
Marcia Howard, president of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators (MFE), told the marchers the history of Edith and Arthur Lee, one of the first African American families to integrate and move into a white neighborhood in a South Minneapolis neighborhood in 1931. Arthur Lee worked as a postal worker and was a World War I veteran. After the Lee family refused to sell their home, a white mob descended on their home threatening the family with violence and racial slurs. However, a group of family members, veterans, and Arthur Lee’s coworkers from the post office formed a barrier around the home to protect the Lee family. Howard said in support of NALC’s legacy of antifascist organizing, “Letter carriers know their neighbors. They know their neighborhoods. Maybe that’s why they’re built just a little different.”
Kieran Knutson, president of Communication Workers of American (CWA) Local 7250, said “The working class of Minnesota has stepped up to meet this challenge”. Knutson encouraged the crowd to call-out of work and school on January 23 as a part of the Minnesota shutdown.
Knutson said, “Let’s continue the Minnesota tradition where Nazis don’t march in this city, they bleed in this city”, in reference to the anti-Islam rally from the day before and the successful counter-protest that blocked them from entering Cedar-Riverside, a predominantly Somali neighborhood. The event echoes the Teamsters Local 574 anti-fascist organizing in 1938, where workers thwarted a white-supremacist rally in Minneapolis.
Metro Transit bus operator, union steward, and former president of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 1005 Ryan Timlin, delivered a passionate speech to the crowd, saying, “Let me refer to one of the greatest strikes that ever happened in U.S. history, the slave revolt during the Civil War.” He continued, “7 million refused to work and stood up against a system, an unjust system, that was repressing, ruining lives, destroying families, and destroying schools. We need to fight back and build a movement”.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
