Fact Check: Minneapolis Officially Nominated for 2026 Nobel Peace Prize

Minneapolis Officially Nominated for 2026 Nobel Peace Prize Amid Immigration Operation

The city of Minneapolis has been formally nominated for the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize, marking a rare instance where an entire municipality has received such recognition. The nomination comes during a period of significant federal immigration enforcement in the city, which has triggered widespread peaceful demonstrations by residents.

The Nation, a prominent progressive magazine, submitted the nomination ahead of the January 31 deadline. Jon Wiener, a contributing editor at The Nation and professor emeritus of history at the University of California, Irvine, made the official submission on the publication’s behalf, meeting the Nobel Committee’s eligibility requirements for nominators.

In their nomination letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee, The Nation’s editors highlighted the city’s response to what they described as “horrific developments” related to ongoing immigration enforcement operations by the Trump administration, which have been active in the Minneapolis metro area for more than a month.

“The people of Minneapolis and neighboring communities have answered that call with peaceful mass demonstrations that have drawn tens of thousands of protesters to the streets in frigid weather,” the nomination letter stated. “They have coupled their cry for federal agents to withdraw from Minneapolis with chants that declare, ‘No hate, no fear… immigrants are welcome here!'”

The nomination particularly emphasized community mutual aid efforts that have emerged in response to the federal operations. These include delivering groceries to residents afraid to leave their homes and providing financial support to individuals unable to work due to the enforcement activities.

The news of the nomination spread rapidly across social media platforms including Reddit, Threads, LinkedIn, and Instagram in late January and early February. One popular Reddit post noted, “The people of Minneapolis have been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The first time a city’s population has ever been nominated.”

While the claim about Minneapolis being the first city nominated cannot be definitively verified, the Nobel Committee’s practice of keeping nominations confidential for 50 years makes it difficult to determine historical precedents with certainty. The committee receives hundreds of nominations annually, many of which remain unknown to the public for decades.

What is known is that since the Nobel Peace Prize’s establishment in 1901, 143 recipients have been honored, including 31 organizations. No municipality has ever won the prize.

For a Nobel Peace Prize nomination to be valid, nominators must fall within specific categories established by the Nobel Committee. These include government officials, university professors, past Nobel Peace Prize winners, and other designated individuals. Wiener’s status as a professor emeritus of history qualifies him under the category of academic nominators.

The Nation’s spokesperson, Caitlin Graf, confirmed the validity of the nomination, forwarding correspondence from the Norwegian Nobel Committee that acknowledged the successful submission of Wiener’s nomination.

The Minneapolis nomination represents an unusual recognition of collective civic action in response to federal policy implementation. The city’s situation has drawn national attention as tensions between federal immigration enforcement and local communities continue to play out across the United States.

The Nobel Peace Prize winner will be announced later this year, following the committee’s deliberation process. Whether Minneapolis becomes the first municipality to receive this prestigious international recognition remains to be seen, but the nomination itself highlights the significance of the city’s community response to current immigration enforcement actions.