MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Police arrested anti-immigration enforcement demonstrators at Minnesota's largest airport Friday after they overstepped their permit, officials said, as a mass mobilization to protest the Trump administration's crackdown began across Minnesota despite Arctic temperatures seizing the state.
A network of labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy had urged Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops Friday to protest the immigration enforcement surge in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
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Candles burn around a poem written by Renee Nicole Good during a vigil honoring Good, outside the State Capitol, in St. Paul, Minn., Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)
People visit a makeshift memorial for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
An image depicting Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, adorns a makeshift memorial for her in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal agents stand guard, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
“Roughly 100 clergy” were arrested, according to Trevor Cochlin of Faith in Minnesota, one of the groups organizing the protest at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They were protesting the involvement of Delta Airlines in the deportation of immigrants.
Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea said the protesters were arrested outside the main terminal when they went beyond the stipulations of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations. Authorities have not said how many people were detained at the airport.
Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organization Faith in Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, D.C.
“We want ICE out of Minnesota,” he said. “We want them out of all the cities around the country where they’re exercising extreme overreach.”
Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan. 7, when Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer. Federal law enforcement officers have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements.
Organizers said Friday morning that more than 700 businesses statewide have closed in solidarity with the protest, from a bookstore in tiny Grand Marais near the Canadian border to the landmark Guthrie Theater in downtown Minneapolis.
“We’re achieving something historic,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 participating groups.
A 2-year-old named Chloe was detained with her father as they drove home from a grocery store in South Minneapolis on Thursday, according to a GoFundMe page created by Minneapolis city council member Jason Chavez.
Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that Border Patrol arrested Elvis Tipan Echeverria of Ecuador and that the toddler's mother refused to take her so she was reunited with her father at a federal detention facility.
According to an emergency petition filed in federal court, a district judge granted an emergency injunction ordering Chloe's release into the custody of her lawyer. The child, a citizen of Ecuador who was brought to Minneapolis as a newborn, has a pending asylum application and is not subject to a final order of removal.
DHS repeated its allegation Friday that the father of 5-year-old Liam Ramos abandoned him during his arrest by immigration officers in Columbia Heights on Tuesday, leading to the child being detained, too.
Department spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said Liam was detained because his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, “fled from the scene.” The two are detained together at the Dilley Detention Center in Texas, which is intended to hold families. McLaughlin said officers tried to get Liam's mother to take him, but she refused to accept custody.
The family’s attorney Marc Prokosch said he thinks the mother refused to open the door to the ICE officers because she was afraid she would be detained. Columbia Heights district superintendent Zena Stenvik said Liam was “used as bait.”
Prokosch found nothing in state records to suggest Liam's father has a criminal history.
On Friday, Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino sought to shift the narrative away from Liam's detention by attacking the news media for, in his view, insufficient coverage of children who have lost parents to violence by people in the country illegally. After briefly mentioning the 5-year-old during a news conference, he talked about a mother of five who was killed in August 2023.
On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people were arrested for their involvement in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Sunday service at a St. Paul church, where an ICE official serves as a pastor.
Black Lives Matter Grassroots, a national hub for local BLM chapters, on Friday expressed its “gratitude” for those activists.
“Grassroots organizers in the Twin Cities are putting their own bodies, freedom and livelihood on the line to secure community,” according to a statement from the organization. “Our courageous freedom fighters who put themselves on the line to protect humanity deserve our gratitude.”
The mass mobilization coincides with a blast of cold air hitting the Upper Midwest and ahead of a severe winter storm that is expected to affect millions.
Organizers hope Friday’s mobilization will be the largest coordinated protest action to date, with a march in downtown Minneapolis planned for Friday afternoon. Early Friday afternoon, the temperature in Minneapolis was minus 12 with a wind chill of minus 28 (minus 24 Celsius with a wind chill of minus 33 Celsius).
Havelin compared the presence of immigration officers in Minnesota to the winter weather warnings.
“Minnesotans understand that when we’re in a snow emergency … we all have to respond and it makes us do things differently,” she said. “And what’s happening with ICE in our community, in our state, means that we can’t respond as business as usual.”
Somali businesses especially have lost sales during the enforcement surge as workers and customers, fearing detention, stay at home.
Many schools were planning to close Friday, but cited different reasons. The University of Minnesota and the St. Paul public school district said there would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold. Minneapolis Public Schools were scheduled to be closed “for a teacher record keeping day.”
Associated Press journalists Jack Brook and Tiffany Stanley in Washington contributed.
Candles burn around a poem written by Renee Nicole Good during a vigil honoring Good, outside the State Capitol, in St. Paul, Minn., Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)
People visit a makeshift memorial for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
An image depicting Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, adorns a makeshift memorial for her in Minneapolis, Wednesday, Jan. 14, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Gray)
Federal agents stand guard, Wednesday, Jan. 21, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the future of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region will be a key focus as negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States meet in Abu Dhabi on Friday for talks to end Russia’s nearly four-year full-scale invasion.
The UAE’s foreign ministry said the talks commenced on Friday and are scheduled to continue over two days “as part of ongoing efforts to promote dialogue and identify political solutions to the crisis.”
The White House described the talks as productive and said conversations would continue on Saturday.
The three-way talks come hours after Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the settlement in Ukraine with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner during marathon overnight talks. The Kremlin insisted that to reach a peace deal, Kyiv must withdraw its troops from the areas in the east that Russia illegally annexed but never fully captured.
Zelenskyy said after meeting with Trump that while the future status of land in eastern Ukraine currently occupied by Russia remains unresolved, the peace proposals are “nearly ready.”
He also reiterated his openness to establishing a free trade zone under Ukraine’s control in the country’s east, adding that he discussed the proposal with Trump in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday: “I think it will be positive for our business," Zelenskyy told reporters.
Friday is the first known time that officials from the Trump administration simultaneously meet with negotiators from both Ukraine and Russia. While it's unclear how the talks will unfold and many obstacles to peace remain, some see it as a sign that the parties are making headway in closing a deal.
Speaking in his evening address to the nation late Friday, Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian delegation attending the talks reported to him “almost every hour.”
“They are discussing the parameters for ending the war," Zelenskyy said. "Now, they should at least get some answers from Russia, and the most important thing is that Russia should be ready to end this war, which it itself started.”
He added that “it’s too early to draw conclusions about the content of today’s negotiations - we’ll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the results will be." "It’s not just about Ukraine’s desire to end this war and achieve full security - it’s also about Russia somehow developing a similar desire,” Zelenskyy said.
“Today’s meeting will be in the format of Ukraine, Russia and the United States, and afterward the Europeans will certainly receive feedback from us,” Zelenskyy told journalists in a WhatsApp audio message.
The Kremlin offered little detail beyond calling Friday’s meeting a “working group on security issues.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reaffirmed Friday that Russia's demand for the Ukrainian troops' withdrawal from the eastern Donbas region is an “important condition,” adding that there are also other “nuances” on the talks agenda that he wouldn't specify.
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who participated in Putin’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, said “it was reaffirmed that reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue.” He described the talks with the U.S. as “frank, constructive” and “fruitful.”
Russia’s state Tass news agency reported that the discussions included possible buffer zones and control measures.
Peskov told reporters that the Russian delegation, headed by Adm. Kostyukov, is comprised of military officials. Separately, Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev will hold talks with Witkoff on economic issues, Peskov added.
The U.S. has confirmed Witkoff and Kushner are attending the talks in Abu Dhabi along with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll and NATO’s top general, U.S. Air Force Gen. Alexus Grynkewich.
The Ukrainian team includes Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s national security and defense council; Andrii Hnatov, chief of the general staff; and Kyrylo Budanov, head of the presidential office.
Hours before the Kremin talks, Zelenskyy met with Trump behind closed doors for about an hour at the World Economic Forum in Davos, describing the meeting as “productive and meaningful.”
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One as he flew back to Washington from Davos, Trump said his meeting with Zelenskyy went well, adding that both Putin and Zelenskyy want to reach a deal and that “everyone’s making concessions” to try to end the war.
He said the sticking points in talks remain the same as they’ve been during talks held during the past six or seven months, noting “boundaries” was a key issue. “The main hold-up is the same things that’s been holding it up for the last year,” he said.
Russia’s bigger army has managed to capture about 20% of Ukraine since hostilities began in 2014 and its full-scale invasion of 2022. But the battlefield gains along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line have been costly for Moscow, and the Russian economy is feeling the consequences of the war and international sanctions.
Ukraine is short of money and, despite significantly boosting its own arms manufacturing, still needs Western weaponry. It is also short-handed on the front line. Its defense minister last week reported some 200,000 troop desertions, and draft-dodging by about 2 million Ukrainians.
Addressing the World Economic Forum on Thursday after meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy listed a litany of grievances and criticisms of Europe.
He chided Europe for being slow to act on key decisions, spending too little on defense, failing to stop Russia’s ”shadow fleet” of oil tankers that are breaking international sanctions, and balking at using its frozen assets in Europe to finance Ukraine, among other things.
“Europe looks lost,” Zelenskyy said in his speech, urging the continent to become a global force. He contrasted Europe’s response with Washington’s bold steps in Venezuela and Iran.
The former comic actor referred to the movie “Groundhog Day,” in which the main character must relive the same day over and over again.
“Just last year, here in Davos, I ended my speech with the words: Europe needs to know how to defend itself. A year has passed. And nothing has changed. We are still in a situation where I must say the same words again,” Zelenskyy said.
Hrabchuk reported from Kyiv, Ukraine and Manenkov from Davos, Switzerland. Josh Boak on Air Force One, Meg Kinnard in Houston and Aamer Madhani, Konstantin Toropin and Ali Swenson in Washington contributed to this report.
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a meeting on the development of domestic integrated electronics at the Kremlin in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Vyacheslav Prokofyev/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greets U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greets U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff, center, and Jared Kushner at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin, left, greet U.S. President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff, centre left, Jared Kushner, second right, and Josh Gruenbaum, the head of the Federal Acquisition Service at the General Services Administration, at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin, in Moscow, Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (Alexander Kazakov/Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
