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u.s. customs and border protection
As Amazon Ditches Flock, Protesters Call On It to Go Further and 'Dump' ICE
"Amazon knows that we know now that they are facilitating and profiting from the rise of a supercharged surveillance state that does not respect human rights or the rule of law, and it must end,” one participant said.
Feb 13, 2026
As backlash against Big Tech’s complicity with President Donald Trump’s authoritarian agenda grows, 200 to 250 people gathered on a rainy Seattle afternoon outside Amazon’s headquarters on Friday to demand that the company “dump” its support for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection, which they illustrated by dumping ice onto the grass.
The protest came one day after Amazon-owned Ring announced it would cut ties with law-enforcement tech company Flock Safety, a move that followed public backlash after a Super Bowl ad showcased a “Search Party” feature that activates a network of Ring cameras and uses artificial intelligence for neighborhood surveillance. Ending the partnership with Flock had originally been one of the Seattle protesters’ three demands.
“Our third demand has already been met—which shows that these companies are waking up to how appalled regular people are about the dystopia they're creating for us," organizer Emily Johnston said in a statement.
Johnston said the backlash, as well as nationwide protests against Target’s complicity with ICE and an open letter from Google employees calling on that company to disclose and divest from its dealings with ICE and CBP, meant “it’s clear that we have momentum.”
“We want them to see that partnering with Palantir was a mistake and hosting ICE and CBP on Amazon Web Services was a mistake."
“No one wants surveillance and state violence except those who are profiting from it—and Amazon's thriving depends on both its workers and customers,” Johnston continued. “We have leverage, and we're going to use it."
The protesters on Friday called on Amazon to go further by stopping to host ICE and CBP on Amazon Web Services and ending its partnership with Palantir that also facilitates deportations and surveillance.
“Corporations for years have not only been complicit, but active beneficiaries of the tax money needlessly spent to tear apart immigrant families and communities,” Guadalupe of participating group La Resistencia said in a statement. “Tech plays a bigger role today more than ever in empowering ICE surveillance and its apparatuses of control.”
Eliza Pan, the co-founder of Amazon Employees for Climate Justice (AECJ), told the crowd that Ring dropping the Flock contract was “a big victory for every single person here.”
“We’re adding to that pressure by being here together,” she said. “Amazon knew about this rally, and knows that this is the first of many if they do not end these other partnerships. Amazon knows that we know now that they are facilitating and profiting from the rise of a supercharged surveillance state that does not respect human rights or the rule of law, and it must end.”
The Ring ad featured at the Super Bowl did not mention Flock and showed the Search Party feature being used to find lost dogs, yet viewers and advocates could easily imagine the technology being used in more invasive ways.
“The addition of AI-driven biometric identification is the latest entry in the company’s history of profiting off of public safety worries and disregard for individual privacy, one that turbocharges the extreme dangers of allowing this to carry on,” Beryl Lipton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in response to the ad. “People need to reject this kind of disingenuous framing and recognize the potential end result: a scary overreach of the surveillance state designed to catch us all in its net.”
The widely negative response told Amazon that partnering with Flock “was a mistake,” protest organizer Evan Sutton told Common Dreams.
“We want them to see that partnering with Palantir was a mistake and hosting ICE and CBP on Amazon Web Services was a mistake,” he said.
The protest was organized by local tech worker, immigrant justice, and other activist groups including AECJ, No Tech for Apartheid, Defend Immigrants Alliance, La Resistencia, Troublemakers, Washington for All, Seattle Indivisible, Seattle DSA, 350 Seattle, and Southend Indivisible.
The protesters gathered for about an hour to listen to six speakers, including progressive Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck. They distributed a flyer to Amazon employees and other passersby with a QR-code link for employees to connect with AECJ.
The demonstration reflects a growing frustration with the Trump-Tech alliance, both nationally and locally.
“We are seeing the American technocrats just full body hug the Trump administration right now, and in the case of Amazon, it’s a company that was born in Seattle, that has made Seattle home, that benefits from all the wonderful things about Seattle and is completely betraying Seattle values by profiting off of the industrial deportation complex and cuddling up to the Trump administration,” Sutton told Common Dreams.
He pointed out that on the night of the day that a CBP agent murdered Alex Pretti, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy attended a private White House premiere for the Melenia movie.
“We have a duty to let these companies know that we won’t stand for it,” he said.
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Trump Orders Nearly 1 Million Migrants Who Entered US Legally to Leave Now
"It was never about 'legal' immigration, but always about upholding white supremacy," said one human rights lawyer.
Apr 08, 2025
In yet another Trump administration attack on migrants, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday announced that nearly 1 million migrants who entered the country legally using a Customs and Border Protection mobile application must leave "immediately" or face consequences including potential criminal prosecution.
DHS notified migrants who were granted temporary parole protection after entering the country using the CBP One app—which was launched by the Biden administration in 2020 and upgraded in 2023—that "it is time for you to leave the United States."
The department "mis now exercising its discretion to terminate your parole," the agency said in an email to affected—and more than 200,000 unaffected—migrants. "Unless it expires sooner, your parole will terminate seven days from the date of this notice."
"If you do not deport from the United States immediately you will be subject to potential law enforcement actions that will result in your removal," the notice continues. "You will be subject to potential criminal prosecution, civil fines, and penalties, and any other lawful options available to the federal government."
"DHS encourages you to leave immediately on your own," the notice stresses, providing a link to a new app—called CBP Home—containing "a self-deportation reporting feature for aliens illegally in the country."
"Do not attempt to remain in the United States. The federal government will find you," DHS ominously added.
Approximately 985,000 migrants used the problem-plagued CBP One app to schedule appointments with U.S. immigration officials when arriving at ports of entry and were generally permitted to remain in the country for two years with work authorization.
However, DHS claimed Monday that "the Biden administration abused the parole authority to allow millions of illegal aliens into the U.S. which further fueled the worst border crisis in U.S. history."
"Canceling these paroles is a promise kept to the American people to secure our borders and protect national security," the agency added.
President Donald Trumpended new CBP One entries on January 20, his first day in office, via executive order, a move that left thousands of vulnerable migrants stranded in Mexico after their immigration appointments were canceled.
Monday's announcement does not affect people who entered the U.S. under Operation Allies Welcome for Afghans or the Uniting for Ukraine program—although more than 200,000 Ukrainian beneficiaries last week received a separate jarring email mistakenly informing them that their status had been revoked.
The new policy also "should not immediately affect migrants who entered via CBP One and applied for asylum and have pending cases in immigration court," according to CBS News immigration and politics reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez, who noted that "the government generally has to wait for those cases to be adjudicated or terminated before moving to deport."
More than 500,000 Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants who entered the country via the CBP One app with U.S.-based financial sponsors are also bracing for the loss of their protected status on April 24. Additionally, the Trump administration announced the revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for over 1 million Haitian and Venezuelan migrants.
However, on March 31 a federal judge in San Francisco blocked the administration's effort to expel 350,000 Venezuelan TPS recipients, finding that the deportations were "motivated by unconstitutional animus" and would "inflict irreparable harm" upon affected migrants.
Critics have accused the Trump administration and its supporters of reveling in the cruelty inherent in forcibly removing migrants.
Proponents, meanwhile, say Trump is keeping his promise to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history—even as statistics show that the Biden administration deported people at a faster rate last year.
Migrants and other immigrants, including those who legally sought asylum in the United States—at least one of whom was wrongfully expelled—are being sent by the Trump administration to destinations including a camp in the Panamanian jungle and an ultra-high security prison in El Salvador.
Advocacy groups argue that such deportations are unlawful and violate deportees' rights. Human Rights Watch has documented cases of "torture, ill-treatment, incommunicado detention, severe violations of due process, and inhumane conditions, such as lack of access to adequate healthcare and food" in Salvadoran prisons.
Responding to Monday's DHS announcement, U.S. human rights attorney Qasim Rashid noted on social media that "985K migrants entered [the] USA through legal means during the previous administration."
"Trump just unilaterally revoked their legal status," Rashid added. "It was never about 'legal' immigration, but always about upholding white supremacy. This man is a fascist."
Allen Orr Jr., a Washington, D.C.-based immigration lawyer, lamented Tuesday that "migrants who followed the rules and entered legally through CBP One are now being punished."
"Not because they broke the law, but because of who granted them the benefit," he added. "This isn't about security; it's about revenge."
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Actions Across US Urge Biden to End 'Cruel' Immigration Detention and Deportations
"Our tax dollars need to be used to strengthen our families and communities and uphold our human rights, not for the militarization of our beloved borderlands," said one activist.
Sep 15, 2023
A coalition of over 80 advocacy groups on Friday co-sponsored demonstrations in eight U.S. states and Washington, D.C. as part of a national day of action demanding the Biden administration close all federal immigration detention centers, release all migrants in custody, and end deportations.
Throughout his campaign, President Joe Biden "pledged to create an immigration system that is just and humane, including ending for-profit immigration detention," the coalition—which is organizing under the Defund Hate and Communities Not Cages banners—said in a statement.
"Our community is enraged and ready to push the Biden administration to fulfill his broken promises."
"However, after taking office, enforcement, detention, and surveillance have only increased and in July 2023, over 90% of detained immigrants are incarcerated in facilities owned and operated by private prison corporations that rake in billions of dollars in revenue," the groups continued.
Noting that at least 11 people have died during U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) detention during Biden's tenure, the coalition said that "the negligent death of 8-year-old Anadith Tanay Reyes Álvarez in CBP custody further highlights an immigration enforcement system beyond compassion and beyond repair."
"Our community is enraged and ready to push the Biden administration to fulfill his broken promises," the campaign added.
The activists are urging the Biden administration to:
- Shut down federal immigration detention centers;
- Defund ICE and CBP by cutting their funding in Biden's fiscal year 2025 budget request; and
- Freeing everyone detained in federal immigration custody.
"We join our colleagues here in D.C. and around the country to demand the Biden administration to move away from the cruel imprisonment of immigrants, release those in ICE custody, end immigration detention, and halt all deportations immediately," Guerline Jozef, co-founder and executive director of the Haitian Bridge Alliance, said in a statement.
Protecting the civil liberties of those seeking a better life in the United States is a core tenant of our nation's democracy," Jozef added. "Throwing vulnerable people into prisons is deplorable—and often deadly."
Jovanny Hernandez, co-chair of the Southern Border Communities Coalition and an organizer for the New Mexico Dream Team, asserted that "it is our constitutional and human right for everyone to live free of inhumane treatment. Yet while the United States presents itself as a beacon of these human rights on the global stage, we continue to witness the violation of our rights at the southern border."
"Our tax dollars need to be used to strengthen our families and communities and uphold our human rights, not for the militarization of our beloved borderlands and the targeting, detention, and deportation of our families, neighbors, and newcomers seeking protection," Hernandez added.
Luba Cortes, immigrant defense coordinator at Make the Road New York, said: "ICE has a horrifying track record of mistreating immigrants—denying them access to legal counsel, denying them freedom, and severing them from their families. Despite this, our government continues to funnel billions of dollars into these detention centers."
"People should be able to navigate their immigration cases with dignity and respect and in the comfort of their homes, not from behind bars in a jail cell," Cortes argued. "It is time to hold this administration accountable. President Biden and Congress must stop wasting public money by unnecessarily punishing immigrants in these horrid facilities and instead focus on reinvesting resources into our communities."
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