The Anti-Trump Fightback in Wisconsin | Socialist Alternative

Like many cities across the country, Madison, Wisconsin has come to life in the wake of the showdown in Minneapolis between the anti-ICE movement and Trump’s deportation machine. On January 30, over 2,000 students in Madison walked out of school to join the nationwide shutdown against ICE, chanting, “Crush ICE with a general strike!” The walkout was organized after students attended a Socialist Alternative organizing meeting on January 26, incensed by the murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents just a day after the first political strike against Trump and ICE. Just four days later, students walked out of class, marched to the Wisconsin state capitol, and demanded that labor leaders organize a general strike by May Day 2026.

Shutting down Trump and ICE will take nothing short of a nationwide general strike, in which the organized working class leverages its massive social and economic weight to grind society to a halt. Wisconsin is no stranger to mighty clashes with the ruling class—in 2011, one of the most significant labor battles in recent decades took place at the state capitol. A massive uprising sought to prevent the passage of Act 10, one of the most severe anti-union laws in the country. It ultimately ended in defeat, and the Wisconsin labor movement still faces immense barriers today. For a nationwide strike to happen, anti-union laws like this must be defied.

Students & Strike Action

Organizing a nationwide strike means that vast sectors of the economy such as logistics, healthcare, education, manufacturing, and transportation sectors must actively prepare to go on strike, and labor leaders must lead this initiative. The Minneapolis general strike of January 23 was a huge step forward in the fight against Trump and ICE. Recognizing that this needed to be expanded and escalated, student organizations at the University of Minnesota followed up with a call for a “national shutdown” including strike action and walkouts on January 30. Unfortunately, labor leaders did not seriously take up this call. In Madison, over two dozen small businesses closed their doors on January 30 while tech giants and logistics continued business as usual.

If labor leaders won’t lead from the front to build for concrete strike action, then we need to drag them into the boxing ring by mounting pressure from below. Students are often the first to move into action against the crises of capitalism, being on the front lines against skyrocketing inflation, housing crisis, rampant college debt, and climate disaster. By organizing walkouts, rallies, and marches alongside campus and teacher unions, students can embolden the movement and give workers the confidence to enter the fight for a nationwide general strike. In Madison, building a coordinated walkout of every Madison area high school on May Day, in support of a general strike, would be an extremely powerful action to stand in solidarity with the teachers’ union, apply pressure on local labor leaders, and move thousands of students into struggle.

The Battle Of Wisconsin

Students moving into action can be the spark that triggers a broader social movement. This happened in 2011 in Madison during the Battle of Wisconsin, when hundreds of thousands took to the street against Act 10, the anti-union legislation of right-wing Republican Governor Scott Walker. The movement against Act 10 was kicked off by over a thousand high school students across the city walking out of classes in solidarity with their teachers and then swelled to twice-daily demonstrations for a month, a two-week occupation of the state Capitol in Madison, a second, shorter occupation of the Capitol, and a prolonged sick-out of Wisconsin teachers.

In 2011, the idea of a general strike was seriously posed within the labor movement, just as it’s being posed in 2026 as the force necessary to shut down Trump and ICE. Though there was huge support for a Wisconsin-wide general strike among union rank and file in 2011, union leadership refused to see it through and instead funnelled the massive momentum into a failed campaign to recall Scott Walker, seeking to please their allies in the Democratic Party who did not want strike action. Act 10 passed and gutted the labor movement in Wisconsin, which is still hamstrung by it today.

Strike Against Trump, ICE & Capitalism

We need to learn from these lessons so that the same mistakes aren’t repeated today. Across the United States, there is significant support among young people, the oppressed, and union rank and file for a general strike. Some national labor leaders have also taken up this call—the May Day Strong coalition, which includes National Education Association (NEA), National Nurses United (NNU), AFA-CWA (Association of Flight Attendants), AFT locals like UTLA, and others, have declared May 1st, 2026 to be a day of “No Work, No School, No Shopping.” It is extremely positive that these national unions with a broad base in the working class have pointed towards strike action on May 1st. However, strikes cannot just be called for—they must be actively built. We should not assume that labor leaders simply signing onto the call will carry out a strike in the face of obstacles like anti-union laws and pressure from the Democratic Party to avoid militant action. We must urgently organize from the ground up to build a mass movement from below of students, workers, and union rank and file who are prepared to strike against Trump and ICE, overriding any hesitations of labor leadership.

But we can’t just stop at shutting down Trump and ICE—we need to set our sights on the global system that produces the immigration crisis. The acceleration of the climate crisis has forced people to flee their homelands, only for them to be deported back. Billionaires are funnelling trillions into hedge funds and speculation, AI data centers, weapons, oil, genocide in Gaza, and of course, ICE. Corporations have reaped more than $22 billion from contracts with border control agencies.

Capitalist divide and rule must be met with international class unity and a fight to fundamentally transform our political and economic system to one where workers own and control the means of production, letting human need decide how and what we produce instead of corporate profit. If you agree, you should join Socialist Alternative!