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This Juneteenth, We Celebrate a Renewed Call for Racial Justice
AFSCME President Lee Saunders issued the following statement to commemorate Juneteenth:
"Juneteenth has always been a day to celebrate the end of slavery and an opportunity for African Americans to honor their history, their culture and their contributions to our nation.
WASHINGTON
AFSCME President Lee Saunders issued the following statement to commemorate Juneteenth:
"Juneteenth has always been a day to celebrate the end of slavery and an opportunity for African Americans to honor their history, their culture and their contributions to our nation.
"This year, our Juneteenth celebrations are draped with a backdrop of peaceful protests pushing for change. If we want to crush enduring, systemic racism in American society - if we want justice for Rayshard Brooks, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many others - we must continue to organize for change. We must continue to make our voices heard. We must make sure that we vote.
"We at AFSCME will never lose sight of the connection between racial justice and economic justice or forget the Jim Crow roots of so-called "right to work" or any other law that divides us as a nation. As we continue the struggle, we will lean on one of the enduring lessons of black history: a thriving African American community, with economic security and upward mobility, depends on strong unions."
AFSCME's 1.4 million members provide the vital services that make America happen. With members in communities across the nation, serving in hundreds of different occupations -- from nurses to corrections officers, child care providers to sanitation workers -- AFSCME advocates for fairness in the workplace, excellence in public services and freedom and opportunity for all working families.
LATEST NEWS
Bondi Announces 2 Arrests Over Protest at Church of ICE-Linked Pastor
"The administration literally changed the rules to allow ICE to raid churches," said one Baptist minister. "That's attacking, not protecting houses of worship!"
Jan 22, 2026
A year after President Donald Trump revoked a rule barring US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from arresting immigrants in or around "sensitive" locations like places of worship, his attorney general on Thursday announced the arrest of two people tied to a recent protest at a Minnesota church where an ICE official reportedly serves as a pastor.
A few dozen demonstrators disrupted a service last Sunday at the Cities Church in Saint Paul, according to the Associated Press. One of the Southern Baptist church's pastors, David Easterwood, seemingly also leads a local ICE field office. Some protesters approached the pulpit, and others chanted "ICE out" and demanded justice for Renee Good, a woman fatally shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis earlier this month.
The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has declined to open a civil rights investigation into Good's killing but swiftly launched one into the church protest. Attorney General Pam Bondi said on social media Thursday morning that at her direction, Homeland Security Investigations and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents "executed an arrest in Minnesota."
"So far, we have arrested Nekima Levy Armstrong, who allegedly played a key role in organizing the coordinated attack on Cities Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota," she continued. "We will share more updates as they become available. Listen loud and clear: WE DO NOT TOLERATE ATTACKS ON PLACES OF WORSHIP."
As the AP reported Monday:
Levy Armstrong, who participated in the protest and leads the local grassroots civil rights organization Racial Justice Network, dismissed the potential DOJ investigation as a sham and a distraction from federal agents' actions in Minneapolis-Saint Paul.
"When you think about the federal government unleashing barbaric ICE agents upon our community and all the harm that they have caused, to have someone serving as a pastor who oversees these ICE agents, is almost unfathomable to me," said Armstrong, who added she is an ordained reverend. "If people are more concerned about someone coming to a church on a Sunday and disrupting business as usual than they are about the atrocities that we are experiencing in our community, then they need to check their theology and the need to check their hearts."
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem shared on social media a photo of Levy Armstrong's arrest and said that "she is being charged with a federal crime" under 18 USC § 241, which calls for fining or imprisoning people who conspire "to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any person... in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same."
Noem added that "religious freedom is the bedrock of the United States—there is no First Amendment right to obstruct someone from practicing their religion," without mentioning the other rights guaranteed by that amendment, including freedom of speech and the right of the people peaceably to assemble.
Later Thursday morning, Bondi posted an update: "A second arrest has been made at my direction. Chauntyll Louisa Allen has been taken into custody. More to come. WE WILL PROTECT OUR HOUSES OF WORSHIP."
Allen is a member of the Saint Paul Public Schools Board of Education. FBI Director Kash Patel said on social media that both women are accused of violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act, or 18 USC § 248, which in part calls for fining in imprisoning anyone who "by force, or threat of force, or by physical obstruction, intentionally injures, intimidates, or interferes with, or attempts to injure, intimidate, or interfere with any person lawfully exercising or seeking to exercise the First Amendment right of religious freedom at a place of religious worship."
As the Washington Post detailed Thursday:
Passed in 1994, the FACE Act has primarily been known for protecting access to reproductive health clinics by making it a crime for demonstrators to block entrances, damage property, or threaten patients.
During the Biden administration, Republicans accused the Justice Department of wielding the act as a cudgel to punish anti-abortion demonstrators for exercising their First Amendment rights.
Since President Donald Trump's return to the White House, the department has cut back on FACE Act prosecutions and deployed the law instead to target protests staged outside houses of worship.
During Trump's 2024 campaign and second term that began a year ago, he and his allies have been accused of trying to move the United States toward "an authoritarianism guided by Christian nationalism," including by pushing to let churches endorse political candidates and establishing a Religious Liberty Commission that critics argue is intended "to advance a Christian nationalist agenda and impose one narrow religious view on the nation's public school children."
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'New Gaza' Plan by Far-Right Zionist Jared Kushner Decried as 'Ethnic Extermination'
"Not anchored in law, nor in facts. Just glossy real estate pitch decks dreamt up by Jared Kushner."
Jan 22, 2026
The presentation on the future of Gaza given by President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, inyelloe Davos on Thursday, offered what one journalist called "a sanitized, cosmetic image" of an exclave that, due largely to US policy, is actually "a place that needs immediate help and support for people who are on the verge of collapse."
Kushner presented a four-phase "master plan" illustrated by CGI-generated images of luxury apartments, data centers, and futuristic-looking skyscrapers.
In the "New Rafah," built over the southern town that the Israel Defense Forces razed last year and forced hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to leave, Trump's so-called "Board of Peace" plans to build more than 200 education centers and over 180 cultural, religious, and vocational buildings.
The "New Gaza" plan seeks to build 100,000 permanent housing units in all as well as 75 medical facilities. A map presented by Kushner shows yellow "residential areas," bright pink zones set aside for what Kushner called "coastal tourism," sections of land dedicated to industrial data centers and "advanced manufacturing," and green sections for “parks, agriculture, and sports facilities."
The presentation showed that "the ethnic extermination plan is two-pronged: Kill as many as possible, then gentrify the rest out," said entrepreneur David Haddad.
Before Israel began its US-backed destruction of Gaza in 2023, which has killed more than 71,000 people, and destroyed more than 90% of housing units, the exclave's healthcare system included 36 hospitals, fewer than 14 of which were still partially functional as of October, when a "ceasefire" was agreed to and Trump began moving forward with his 20-point "peace plan."
The presentation Kushner gave Thursday was part of that plan, with four phases of transformation beginning with the opening of the Rafah crossing and moving northward through Khan Younis and Gaza City, with a seaport and airport also being built.
The master plan, said Kushner, is projected to cost $25 billion, and would ultimately result in "peace and prosperity" in Gaza.
“People ask us what our plan B is, we do not have a plan B. We have a plan, we signed an agreement, we are committed to making that agreement work,” Kushner said. “There’s a master plan. We’ll be doing it in phasing. In the Middle East, they build cities like this, in, uh, you know, 2, 3 million people. They build this in three years. And so stuff like this is very doable if we make it happen.”
International lawyer Itay Epshtain said that as with the "'peace to prosperity' fantasy," the so-called master plan "won't come to pass."
The proposal, he said, is "not anchored in law, nor in facts. Just glossy real estate pitch decks dreamt up by Jared Kushner. Meanwhile, real humanitarian relief, recovery, and peace for Palestinians are sidelined—sacrificed to delusions of grandeur and war profiteering."
At the "signing ceremony" for the Board of Peace—which includes no Palestinians and has no support from the United States' major longtime European allies—Trump said he approached the development of Gaza as "a real estate person at heart."
"It’s all about location, and I said, look at this location on the sea, look at this beautiful piece of property, what it could be for so many people,” Trump said. “It’ll be so, so great. People that are living so poorly are going to be living so well."
That outlook, said Hani Mahmoud of Al Jazeera, is one that views Gaza as a "future investment project."
"That’s the problem," said Mahmoud. "It is not being dealt with as a place where people are being killed and starved, and being pretty much cornered in every way possible by the acts that the Israeli military is conducting on the ground. The danger stems from the fact that Gaza is being discussed as an investment and a planning site, rather than as a place where people are being killed on a daily basis—largely ignoring the displacement, the genocidal acts, the starvation, and the misery."
Dilly Hussain of the UK-based news outlet 5 Pillars, said Kushner had proudly presented a plan for a "mega city built on the mass graves of Palestinians after a two-year genocide sponsored by the US."
"No accountability, just business as usual," said Hussain, "with the chief genocider [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu sitting on the 'Board of Peace.'"
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Netanyahu Skips Signing of 'Board of Peace' Charter Because He's Wanted for War Crimes In Switzerland
One UN expert said it shows "why the ICC and the Rome Statute are so important, even if Israel and the US work to undermine it."
Jan 22, 2026
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on President Donald Trump's so-called "Board of Peace" for Gaza. But he couldn't attend the ceremony in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday because he'd likely be arrested for war crimes if he set foot in the country.
In 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and then-Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, accusing them of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s genocidal military assault in Gaza.
At least 71,000 Palestinians—the majority of whom were women and children—have been killed by Israeli forces, and at least 169,000 more have been injured during the military campaign, according to official numbers.
Other estimates suggest the real death toll is much higher when taking into account the results of Israel’s crushing blockade of humanitarian aid and its destruction of infrastructure that has made the Gaza Strip virtually unlivable, and which has continued despite a "ceasefire" reached in October.
These deaths are the result of what the ICC said has been a systematic campaign by Netanyahu to use starvation as a method of warfare and enact collective punishment against the strip's civilian population.
Switzerland is one of 125 nations that have ratified the Rome Statute, which established the ICC in 1998 as an international body to prosecute leaders who commit genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crimes of aggression.
Prior to Davos, the Swiss government stated a firm commitment to arresting Netanyahu if he ever sets foot in its territory.
"As a party to the Rome Statute, Switzerland is obliged to cooperate with the International Criminal Court," the nation's Federal Office of Justice told Haaretz. "Switzerland would in principle be required to arrest accused persons if they were to enter Switzerland at this time, provided that a corresponding arrest warrant or an arrest request based on it had been issued by the ICC, and to initiate the surrender proceedings to the International Criminal Court."
Several other countries, including the Netherlands—where the ICC is based—as well as Spain, Ireland, and Australia, have also said they'd comply with the warrants if Netanyahu were to visit.
While the US and Israel itself have not ratified the statute, many of Israel's other allies—including the United Kingdom, France, and Canada—are also party to the agreement and obligated to arrest Netanyahu, though he has thus far not tested their willingness to do so, and many have not stated clearly whether they'd follow through on the obligation.
The only ICC nation Netanyahu has entered since the warrants were issued is Hungary, whose far-right leader Viktor Orban defied the mandate to arrest him and later withdrew from the ICC.
Meanwhile, the US has placed sanctions on the ICC and its chief justice, Karim Khan, and several judges who participated in issuing the warrants, while threatening to do so against any other entity that cooperates with the court.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog, who appeared at Davos in Netanyahu’s stead on Wednesday, called the ICC’s warrants “illegitimate” and said it was “unacceptable and shameful” for Netanyahu to be excluded from “a conference that aims to shape the future of the world and the Middle East.”
While the ICC's inability to act on its warrants unilaterally has led some to dismiss them as impotent, Beatrice Fihn, a Swedish senior fellow at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, said blocking Netanyahu from events like Davos shows "why the ICC and the Rome Statute are so important, even if Israel and the US work to undermine it."
"The arrest warrant," she said, "is making Netanyahu's work harder."
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