U.S. Peace Council Statement, January 19, 2025 —
Solidarity with January 23 Day of Action, the Week of Action to Defend Venezuela and the February 6th No Work for War Action.
The U.S. Peace Council stands in full solidarity with the January 23 Day of Action in Minnesota and with the Stop the War on Venezuela – Free President Maduro and Cilia Flores! Week of Action, January 24–31. These mobilizations confront different expressions of the same imperialist system: a system that wages war abroad to maintain global domination while intensifying repression, exploitation, and violence against immigrant, working-class Black, Brown, Indigenous and other oppressed communities at home.
On January 23, communities across Minnesota are calling for a unified pause in economic activity—No Work, No School, No Shopping—to protest the escalating fascist ICE attacks on our communities. Dozens of people have been killed in ICE detention and raids—most recently, the killings of Renée Nicole Good in Minneapolis and Keith Porter in Los Angeles, both shot by ICE agents. ICE operates together with the other racist and repressive state apparatuses to violate constitutional and human rights, terrorize immigrant and other targeted communities, and expand a vast detention–deportation industry that profits from human suffering.
The U.S. Peace Council joins the demands that ICE leave Minnesota, that those responsible for Renee Nicole Good’s death be held legally accountable, and that corporations sever all economic ties with this repressive agency. We also join the grassroots call to abolish ICE—and to abolish the imperialist policies that drive mass displacement and migration, alongside the repressive and racist immigration regime that renders migrants vulnerable to violence and exploitation. Finally, we recognize and uplift the mobilization of the Minneapolis based Indigenous Protector Movement, building on the long-standing defense of Indigenous communities in Minneapolis against state violence and Indigenous land dispossession.
At the same time, the U.S. government is escalating its war against Venezuela. After years of illegal sanctions, economic strangulation, and other hybrid warfare, U.S. forces carried out direct military aggression in early January, killing civilians, and kidnapping President Nicolás Maduro and “First Combatant” Cilia Flores—who remain prisoners of war in New York on fabricated “narco-terrorism” charges. These actions are part of a decades-long counterrevolutionary campaign to destroy Venezuela’s sovereignty, reclaim control over its oil resources, and prevent it from building South–South alliances outside U.S. domination.
Imperialist war abroad and repression at home are inseparable. The same logic that justifies sanctions, blockades, coups, and invasions also fuels ICE raids, mass surveillance, militarized policing, and National Guard occupations of working-class communities. And the same impunity that allows ICE agents to raid, brutalize, abduct, and kill with no accountability is mirrored in the U.S. government’s imperialist assault on Venezuela—through illegal sanctions, hybrid warfare, and direct aggression—culminating in the hostage-taking of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on fabricated charges. The criminalization and dehumanization of migrants is designed to divide the working class, deflect anger away from monopoly capital, and normalize domestic counterinsurgency—just as demonization campaigns against Venezuela, Iran, and Palestine manufacture consent for war and regime change.
The January 25 International Online Mass Rally and the coordinated Week of Action from January 24–31 represent a critical opportunity to align struggles across borders. From Caracas to Tehran to the belly of the beast, organized labor, community groups, and a growing anti-imperialist movement are rising to say no to U.S. wars for regime change, no to sanctions and economic warfare, and no to domestic occupation by ICE and militarized police. We call on all affiliated unions, community organizations, student, faith based, and antiwar forces to mobilize our collective power, to educate and organize, disrupt supply chains of imperialism, target arms manufacturers and oil corporations, oppose U.S. military bases and embassies, and build sustained international solidarity.
The U.S. Peace Council affirms that Venezuela is targeted for asserting its sovereignty, reclaiming its resources, supporting global south liberation, and contributing to a multipolar world beyond U.S. unilateral domination. Just as ICE raids and deportations are tools of class warfare at home, sanctions and military aggression are tools of imperialist domination abroad. Both must be defeated.
We therefore call on all people of conscience to:
- Build coordinated resistance that confronts imperialism in all its forms—economic, military, ideological, and domestic repression.
- Commit to sustained organizing that links our struggles against the war at home and the war abroad.
Help build and join:
- January 23 Day of Action and demand an end to ICE raids, deportations, and detention.
- January 25 International Mass Rally and the January 24–31 Week of Action to stop the war on Venezuela and free President Maduro and Cilia Flores.
- February 6th International Call for No Work for War
Venceremos.
