We asked Minnesota’s biggest companies about ICE. None of them responded

The sonic backdrop of the Twin Cities in 2026 is a cacophony.

As thousands of ICE agents raid residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, and businesses, they’re trailed by the ambient noise of piercing sirens, whirring helicopters, and screeching whistles at all hours of the day, along with the occasional boom of flashbang grenades and the odd cry for help.

Conspicuously silent in all the commotion, however, are major corporations that are headquartered in Minnesota.

It’s a list that includes some of the most well-known consumer-facing brands in the country, including Target, Best Buy, and Land O’Lakes—all of which have an obvious direct stake in the communities that are currently being disrupted by this occupation.

As of Friday morning, not one of them has released an official statement about what’s happening.

After an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good last week and brought international attention to Minneapolis, escalating tensions have knocked residents out of their normal routines.

A pervasive awareness has sunk in—violent ICE sweeps of residents or their neighbors can happen anywhere, and anyone might get caught up in them just for walking their dog at the wrong moment or not carrying proof of citizenship. One of the consequences is that small businesses are suffering—especially those owned by immigrants.

Local restaurants are speaking up about the situation.

Minneapolis’s Mothership Pizza, for instance, announced its owners are giving 10% of all dinner sales directly to team members affected by ICE, while Owamni by the Sioux Chef—which the New Yorker dubbed the “best new restaurant in the U.S.” in 2022—donated 10% of its proceeds last weekend to Good’s family.

As for the Fortune 500 companies based in Minnesota, well, it’s anyone’s guess how those in their C-suites feel—or at least prefer to be seen as feeling—about what ICE is doing in the state.

Fast Company reached out multiple times this week to General Mills, Target, Best Buy, Cargill, UnitedHealth Group, 3M, and Land O’Lakes for comment. None of them responded.

What a difference five years—and a pivotal election—can make.

The reckoning of the reckoning 

In the summer of 2020, another broad-daylight killing at the hands of a law enforcement officer—similarly captured on video—brought this city international attention.

The murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police sparked massive protests, and what some at the time prematurely called “a racial reckoning.” Even Donald Trump, whom many seem to forget was president at the time, briefly acknowledged in a statement, “All Americans were rightly sickened and revolted by the brutal death of George Floyd,” before turning his ire forever toward the “angry mob” of protesters. 

Meanwhile, all of those major companies mentioned above were sufficiently moved to join the chorus of CEOs who had publicly weighed in on that moment.

Depending on your perspective, they were either unburdening their consciences or paying lip service—your mileage may vary—but it’s notable that their ranks included Target’s then-CEO Brian Cornell, who declared in a statement, “We are a community in pain.”

Graveyard of good intentions 

The intervening Biden years saw a swift and relentless rightwing backlash against anguished executives promising to do better. Tech CEO Vivek Ramaswamy, for instance, squeezed so much juice out of his staunch opposition to what he termed “woke capitalism” that he briefly became a long-shot 2024 presidential contender. 

Conservative media hubs like Fox News and Trump-Lite figures like Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida strongly denounced corporate gestures toward social justice, including Target’s Pride merch and Disney’s LGBTQ advocacy.

After a flurry of high-profile boycotts, the sprawling corporate conscience of 2020 looked more like a dream blinked away in the harsh light of day.

Many companies had already begun retreating from DEI initiatives and inclusive messaging by 2024; partly for organic reasons, and partly as a result of MAGA influencers orchestrating social media attack campaigns.

The election, however, changed everything.

The Eye of Sauron is watching brands

Conservatives hailed Trump’s return to office as the final nail in the coffin of Woke. Mega-companies such as Meta Platforms and Amazon, formerly critical of Trump, made a grand show of shredding their last remaining vestiges of DEI, seemingly part of a broader strategy to ingratiate themselves with the new president and his supporters—or, at least, to avoid their wrath.

Nearly a year into Trump 2.0, corporations now understand that speaking up about social issues might bring to bear the full force of the federal government in retaliation.

Before Good was killed, for instance, a local Hilton affiliate declined to house ICE agents booked at the hotel. The Department of Homeland Security responded by posting on X that Hilton had launched a “coordinated campaign” against the agency, “siding with murderers and rapists to deliberately undermine and impede DHS law enforcement.”

By the end of the day, the #BoycottHilton hashtag was all over X and the company’s shares were down by 2.5%.

The hotel giant quickly clarified that the establishment responsible for canceling the reservations was independently owned, and that Hilton is in fact a welcoming oasis for any government agency conducting violent missions in any U.S. city. (More or less.)

In another era, the company might have ended its ass-covering there. In this one, Hilton went scorched earth. It de-franchised the hotel, lest there be any confusion about whether the brand itself had been taking a stand against ICE, or even permitting a stand to be made on its property.

No brand wants to be a target

If it was unexpected how vehemently Hilton distanced itself from the possibility of having an opinion, other recent brand reactions to government overreach are much less surprising.

Not a peep was heard from Jeff Bezos this week when the FBI raided the home of a reporter at the newspaper he owns. Nor is anyone holding their breath waiting for Mark Zuckerberg to speak out about ICE reportedly abducting workers from a Meta data center in Louisiana this week

As for Minnesota businesses, the most conspicuously silent among them is Target. It’s perhaps the company most closely associated with the area, the one whose name adorns local baseball stadium and concert venue Target Field.

And it’s the company most closely connected to the ICE raids, after agents snatched and injured two employees in the middle of a shift—both of whom turned out to be U.S. citizens, as caught on a disturbing video.

But Target also might be the company with the most financially at stake. The retailer incurred persistent boycotts in 2025, after rolling back DEI initiatives amidst a changing political landscape. Its share price has only recently begun to recover—it’s up more than 10% in 2026. 

Still, the Twin Cities community wants action from the brand. Since the incident last week, residents have protested outside the store where the employees were abducted, demanding a response.

A strong statement at least acknowledging that Minneapolis is, once again, “a community in pain,” might even help win back disappointed progressive shoppers. 

Then again, if Minnesota businesses continue to keep quiet about the ICE invasion, perhaps consumer demand within the state will become silent too.

source https://www.fastcompany.com/91476021/minnesota-biggest-companies-ice-statements-silence