A choir of about 20 people, spanning generations, gathers in a Minneapolis hotel lobby in a half circle, a conductor guiding them. They sing lines about not being afraid and fighting for liberation while holding signs that say No sleep for ICE and Hilton stop housing ICE. What looks like a quiet rehearsal is a tactic: organizers told participants to keep singing until police appeared and to avoid escalation.
Minneapolis has become a testing ground for inventive nonviolent pressure on Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Residents use singing, loud noise, and impromptu concerts to interrupt the rest and work of officers staying in local hotels. These actions are one element of a wider shift across the United States toward diverse nonviolent tactics: coalition-building to widen backing, noncooperation such as neighborhood patrols and alerting residents through encrypted chat groups, and coordinated boycotts. Not every call for mass disruption succeeds—the recent nationwide call to stay home from school, work, and shopping did not halt the country—but organizers continue experimenting with approaches that physically and socially constrain repressive institutions.
There are recent precedents for nonviolent campaigns producing dramatic results. Over the past two years, Gen Z–led movements in Nepal, Bangladesh, and Madagascar played major roles in toppling governments while remaining largely nonviolent. Veterans of earlier campaigns point to longevity and mass participation as decisive factors. Ivan Marovic, who helped lead Serbia’s Otpor movement against Slobodan Milosevic, stresses that the hard work is keeping as many people mobilized as possible for as long as it takes. Otpor’s student-led protests persisted for more than two years before the regime fell.
Scholars often cite a rough benchmark: sustained nonviolent participation by roughly 3.5 percent of a population makes regime change likely. Yet numbers alone don’t guarantee success. What matters is converting protest into a durable movement that can maintain continuous pressure on institutions and officials.
Local organizers in Minneapolis say their efforts meet those standards. Aru Shiney-Ajay, executive director of the Sunrise Movement and a coordinator of hotel actions, says neighborhood Signal groups regularly hit the limit of people who can be active at once and that many more provide logistical support. Counting everyone who helps but does not stand on the front line, she estimates involvement reaches about 4 percent of the local populace. For her, people are hungry for tactics that materially hinder authoritarian practices.
Experts caution against treating the 3.5 percent guideline as universal. Lee Smithey, a professor of Peace and Conflict Studies and Sociology, notes it may not apply cleanly to small-scale, city-limited campaigns; context and strategy shape outcomes.
Humor and satire remain potent tools for sustaining participation and weakening authority. Shiney-Ajay cites Otpor’s playful tactics as inspiration. Marovic recalls a symbolic prank in which protesters dressed a turkey with daisies associated with a leader’s household and paraded it through town—an act aimed at ridiculing the system and forging a shared emblem for demonstrators. Lighthearted tactics can lower the barrier to joining protests, reduce fear of repression, and make actions safe enough for children and elders to take part.
Avoiding fatigue requires visible wins. Organizers point to concrete results: some hotels have stopped housing ICE personnel, and there has been a decline in the number of officers stationed in Minnesota. In one high-profile personnel change, Gregory Bovino, the local border patrol official overseeing immigration enforcement, left his post following the shooting of protester Alex Pretti by an ICE officer in January—an outcome celebrated by activists as evidence their pressure was effective. ICE did not respond to requests for comment.
To sustain momentum, planners are already mapping future disruptions. One idea is to push the city to schedule construction or repairs on highway ramps near the Whipple detention facility—recasting routine municipal work, like fixing potholes, as a lever for obstructing detention operations.
The strength of nonviolent protest lies in its inclusiveness, creativity, and persistence. By building broad coalitions, keeping pressure constant, using humor to lower barriers, and targeting achievable policy or operational goals, movements can degrade the functioning of authoritarian systems without turning to violence. Edited by Rob Mudge.