For many families, Target is a familiar stop: a place to grab school supplies, home goods, snacks, or the latest entertainment device — all under one roof. It’s the kind of store woven into everyday life.
But as footage of federal immigration agents brutalizing immigrants and citizen protestors alike spreads across the country, some shoppers are beginning to ask a hard question: what does it mean to shop at a company that is cooperating with ICE and Border Patrol?
In Minnesota, where Target is based, Target isn’t just another retailer. It’s the fourth largest employer in the state and a cornerstone of Minnesotan cultural identity, with its red bullseye logo appearing across sports teams and city life.
And far beyond Minnesota, Target has long attracted customers with its modern, inclusive branding. Its ads and products celebrate different skin colors and body types, include people with disabilities, and mark observations like Black History Month or (until they scaled it back recently) Pride Month.
Yet the company has faced growing backlash in recent years — first for donating $1 million to President Trump’s inauguration, then for rolling back its DEI policies after Trump railed against them. Now advocates say that Target has crossed another line: allowing ICE and Border Patrol agents to enter and operate inside its stores.
That concern became impossible to ignore this January, when Border Patrol agents assaulted and detained two U.S. citizens inside a Target store in Richfield, Minnesota. In response, shoppers began protesting at stores across the country, demanding that Target immediately stop cooperating with ICE. Among them were Target workers themselves, some of whom say they witnessed colleagues taken by agents.
Target leadership, alongside executives from 60 major corporations in Minnesota, responded by publishing a letter calling for the “immediate de-escalation of tensions.” Advocates pushed back, arguing that de-escalation isn’t enough. Instead, they say corporations must take concrete action by refusing to cooperate with ICE and Border Patrol and demanding their removal from communities.
These protests are unfolding as Congress negotiates funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the department that oversees ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP), after popular opposition to ICE and CBP killings arose during budget negotiations.
Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that passed last year pumped $170 billion into DHS for MAGA’s mass deportation agenda — including $75 billion for ICE and $58 billion for CBP through 2029. This funding comes on top of the agencies’ annual budgets, roughly doubling their joint annual budget and enabling abuses like those seen in Minneapolis and across the country.
With so many Americans struggling right now, that money could go to so many better uses.
My colleagues and I at the Institute for Policy Studies found that the $170 billion for mass deportations and detentions could fund nearly 400,000 living wage jobs for single-parent families with two children over four years.
Senator Bernie Sanders also pushed a measure, which only narrowly failed in the Senate, to put ICE’s extra $75 billion back into Medicaid instead — where it would have helped 700,000 Americans who will lose health care under the “Big Beautiful Bill” keep their insurance.
Immigrant groups and advocates are clear about what they want next: to get ICE out of our communities and stop funding it, including clawing back the $170 billion already allocated. We also need real accountability measures that would finally end the violence and abuse carried out by these agencies.
In the meantime, it may be time for some of us to rethink where we shop.
It isn’t a question of whether Target is affordable or convenient. It’s whether a trusted household brand should be allowed to enable harm behind its familiar red-and-white logo.
