Official Statement on Solidarity with Minnesota, Abolishing ICE

Approved by the UCWAZ Steering Committee and released publicly on January 29th, 2026.

For the past two months, the Trump administration has been terrorizing the city of Minneapolis with the deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers. These ICE officers have been kidnapping community members under the xenophobic claim that they are detaining criminal immigrants, going way beyond so-called immigration enforcement. In response to this terror, Minneapolis community members have done the work of setting up community protection networks that follow ICE agents, inform their neighbors when agents are in the community, and document ICE’s actions. Two of these community members, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, were killed by ICE agents as they were trying to help their neighbors. This is in addition to dozens of other people who have died in ICE custody in just 2025.

While the recent surge of ICE activity across the country is uniquely alarming, as a border state, Arizona has experienced a large amount of this activity during ICE’s two-decade-long existence. The fact is that our campus communities have a large number of international students who have now found themselves under threat, as well as Hispanic students, staff and faculty who are now threatened by racial profiling, approved by the Supreme Court.

Whether it’s in Minnesota, Arizona, or any other state in this country, we stand in solidarity with everyone fighting back against ICE to protect their communities and support the organized general strike on January 30th. The organized general strike in Minneapolis last Friday, January 23rd, showed what community members and organizers can do to fight back against ICE and the Trump administration.

As leaders and members of United Campus Workers of Arizona, we demand the following:

• That ICE (and the Department of Homeland Security) be abolished; that all funds be redirected to public education.
• That individual ICE agents be investigated and prosecuted for killing community members.
• That the Arizona Board of Regents, the Maricopa County Community College District’s Governing Board, and university leaders at the University of Arizona, Arizona State University and Northern Arizona University create policies that bar ICE agents from entering our campuses and cancel any contracts with Flock surveillance.
• That Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs bar state law enforcement from working with ICE in any way.
• That university leadership immediately cease compliance with the Trump administration’s whims and publicly condemn every part of the Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.

In solidarity, 

Your Union, United Campus Workers of Arizona CWA Local 7065

To read or download the statement as a PDF, click the button below.

Jan. 30th Actions Near You

ASU/Phoenix

• 10:30am @ ASU - walkout to Old Main
• 1pm @ Arizona State Capitol - citywide demonstration

NAU/Flagstaff

• 4pm @ NAU - poster-making by the Student Union (outside Starbucks)
• 5pm @ NAU - protest by the Student Union (outside Starbucks)

UA/Tucson

• 1pm @ UA - rally at the UA Mall stage
• 2pm @ Federal Building - citywide demonstration