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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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'No Concessions': San Francisco Teachers End 4-Day Strike After Winning Raise, Family Healthcare
“This historic strike built an unbreakable solidarity across our city, among families, students, educators, and community," said San Francisco's teachers union.
Feb 13, 2026
San Francisco public school teachers and their union celebrated Friday after negotiating a tentative agreement for a new contract with higher pay and fully funded family healthcare, ending a four-day walkout that was the city's first educator strike in nearly half a century.
United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) said its bargaining team reached a two-year tentative deal with the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) at around 5:30 am local time Friday. The 120 public schools that were closed due to the walkout by around 6,000 teachers are set to reopen for classes next Wednesday.
"This historic strike built an unbreakable solidarity across our city, among families, students, educators, and community," UESF said in a statement. "This strike has made it clear what is possible when we join together and fight for the stability in our schools that many have said was out of our reach."
The tentative agreement, which follows 11 months of bargaining, includes the union's main demand for fully funded health coverage for dependents; raises of between 5-8.5%; caseload reductions for special educators; sanctuary protections for students and staff; limits on the use of artificial intelligence; preservation and expansion of the Stay Over program for unhoused students and their families; and better working conditions for librarians, substitute teachers, counselors, and other staff.
“By forcing SFUSD to invest in fully funded family healthcare, special education workloads, improved wages, sanctuary and housing protections for San Francisco families, we’ve made important progress towards the schools our students deserve,” said UESF president Cassondra Curiel “This contract is a strong foundation for us to continue to build the safe and stable learning environments our students deserve.”
SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su said in a statement: "I recognize that this past week has been challenging. Thank you to the SFUSD staff, community-based partners, and faith and city leaders who partnered with us to continue centering our students in our work every day."
"I am so proud of the resilience and strength of our community," Su added. "This is a new beginning, and I want to celebrate our diverse community of educators, administrators, parents, and students as we come together and heal."
However, Su also warned that “we do not have enough funds to pay for this year and the next two years," citing SFUSD's over $100 million budget deficit.
The striking teachers enjoyed widespread support and solidarity across the city, including at a massive rally outside City Hall on Monday.
San Francisco’s first public school teachers strike in 47 years started today with picket lines across the city and a rally at Civic Center. Schools will remain closed on Tuesday. Read live updates: https://t.co/5iRAt8eWdu
📝: Ezra Wallach, @low___impact, @allaboutgeorge pic.twitter.com/KMylN2L3fU
— The San Francisco Standard (@sfstandard) February 10, 2026
San Francisco teachers cheered the tentative agreement—especially its coverage of 100% of premiums on family health plans, which run about $1,500 per month, beginning next January.
“That amount of money is life-changing to us,” Balboa High School English teacher Ryan Alias said during a Thursday press conference.
“If we had that in our pocket, we would be able to save for retirement,” added Alias, who has two children in SFUSD schools. "We would be able to save for college funds. We’d be able to save for student loans. We’d be able to pay for art classes for our kids. This is the thing that is going to keep educators in the city.”
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GOP Ripped for 'Grotesque' Farm Bill Full of 'Industry-Backed Poison Pills'
"Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off industry's cruel wish list," one critic warned.
Feb 13, 2026
Advocates for animal welfare, environmental protection, public health, and small family farms fiercely condemned various "industry-backed poison pills" in the long-awaited Farm Bill draft unveiled Friday by a key Republican in the US House of Representatives.
"A new Farm Bill is long overdue, and the Farm, Food, and National Security Act of 2026 is an important step forward in providing certainty to our farmers, ranchers, and rural communities," said House Committee on Agriculture Chair Glenn "GT" Thompson (R-Pa.) in a statement.
While Thompson has scheduled a markup of the 802-page proposal for February 23, critics aren't waiting to pick apart the bill, which aligns with a 2024 GOP proposal that was also sharply rebuked. The panel's ranking member, Rep. Angie Craig (D-Minn.), said that from what she has seen so far, the new legislation "fails to meet the moment facing farmers and working people."
"Farmers need Congress to act swiftly to end inflationary tariffs, stabilize trade relationships, expand domestic market opportunities like year-round E15, and help lower input costs," Craig stressed. "The Republican majority instead chose to ignore Democratic priorities and focus on pushing a shell of a farm bill with poison pills that complicates if not derails chances of getting anything done. I strongly urge my Republican colleagues to drop the political charade and work with House Democrats on a truly bipartisan bill to address the very real problems farm country is experiencing right now—before it's too late."
Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity, similarly blasted the GOP legislation on Friday, declaring that "this Republican Farm Bill proposal is a grotesque, record-breaking giveaway to the pesticide industry that will free Big Ag to accelerate the flow of dangerous poisons into our nation's food supply and waterways."
"This bill would block people suffering from pesticide-linked cancers from suing pesticide makers, eviscerate the EPA's ability to protect rivers and streams from direct pesticide pollution, and give the pesticide industry an unprecedented veto over extinction-preventing safeguards for our nation's most endangered wildlife," he said, referring to the Environmental Protection Agency.
"If Congress passes this monstrosity, it will speed our march toward the dawn of a very real silent spring, a day without fluttering butterflies, chirping frogs, or the chorus of birds at sunrise," Hartl warned. "No one voted for Republicans to allow foreign-owned pesticide conglomerates to dominate the policies that impact the safety of the food every American eats. But this bill leaves no doubt that's exactly who is calling all the shots."
Food & Water Watch (FWW) managing director of policy and litigation Mitch Jones also sounded the alarm about industry-friendly poison pills, arguing that any draft containing the "Cancer Gag Act" that would shield pesticide companies from liability or the Ending Agricultural Trade Suppression Act—which would block state and local policies designed to protect animal welfare, farm workers, and food safety—"must be dead on arrival."
Sara Amundson, president of Humane World Action Fund—formerly called Humane Society Legislative Fund—also made a case against targeting state restrictions for animals like Proposition 12 in California, which the US Supreme Court let stand in 2023, in response to a challenge by the National Pork Producers Council and the American Farm Bureau Federation.
"Once again, the House Agriculture Committee Republican majority is bending to the will of a backwards-facing segment of the pork industry by trying to force through a measure to override the preferences of voters in more than a dozen states, upend the decisions of courts all the way up to the Supreme Court, and trample states' rights all at the same time," Amundson said Friday.
The National Family Farm Coalition highlighted that "instead of addressing the widespread concerns of family-scale farmers—ensuring fair prices for farmers, improving credit access, addressing corporate land consolidation, and creating a trade environment that benefits producers—this draft perpetuates the status quo that enriches and empowers corporate agribusiness. The result is an accelerating farm crisis that continues to hollow out rural communities across the US."
Thompson also faced outrage over other policies left out of the GOP legislation—particularly from those calling for the restoration of $187 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) that congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump forced through last year with their so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act (HR 1).
"HR 1 shifts unprecedented costs to already cash-strapped states, expands time limits, and strips food benefits away from caregivers, veterans, older workers, people experiencing homelessness, and humanitarian-based noncitizens," noted Crystal FitzSimons, president of the Food Research & Action Center.
"HR 1 is an unforgiving assault on America's hungry, deliberately dismantling our nation's first line of defense against hunger," she continued. "Yet, when given the opportunity to correct this harm in the latest Farm Bill proposal, Chairman Thompson unveiled a package that will only deepen hunger instead of fixing it. Hunger is not something Congress can afford to ignore."
Jones of FWW said that "families and farmers are hungry for federal policy that supports small- and mid-sized producers and keeps food affordable. Instead, Chairman Thompson appears poised to check off industry's cruel wish list."
"America needs a fair Farm Bill," he emphasized. "It is imperative that this Farm Bill repeal all Trump SNAP cuts and restore full funding to this critical nutrition program; stop the proliferation of factory farms; and support the transition to sustainable, affordable food."
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Trump's Concentration Camp Build-Out Includes Nearly $40 Billion for Warehouse Conversions
"Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours," wrote talk show host Thom Hartmann recently. "History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting."
Feb 13, 2026
President Donald Trump's anti-immigration agenda has supercharged opposition in cities where he has deployed federal agents to conduct raids, and communities in states including New York and Missouri are already working to block the next step the Department of Homeland Security plans to take in its push for mass deportations: acquiring massive warehouses across the country to use as immigrant detention centers.
US immigration and Customs Enforcement documents that were provided to Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire—one of the states where ICE aims to acquire a building and retrofit it to house at least 1,000 people at a time—show that the administration plans to spend $38.3 billion on its mass detention plan.
It would buy 16 buildings across the country to use as "regional processing centers" that could hold 1,000-1,500 people. Another eight detention centers would hold as many as 10,000 people at a time, with the detainees awaiting deportation.
The Washington Post reported that a review of state budget data showed that the amount of money the White House intends to pour into the project over the next several months is larger than the total annual spending of 22 US states.
"Thirty-eight billion dollars," said Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.). "That's what Trump is spending to turn warehouses into human holding facilities. Not on schools. Not on healthcare. Not on veterans. On warehousing humans."
Moulton also condemned ICE's claim that the new network of detention facilities will ensure the “safe and humane civil detention" of immigrants.
At least six people died in ICE detention centers in January, and one of the deaths, that of Geraldo Lunas Campos at Camp East Montana in El Paso, Texas, was ruled a homicide.
Medical neglect and abusive treatment—including some that amounts to torture—has been reported at multiple facilities.
ICE has already spent more than $690 million purchasing at least eight warehouses in Maryland, Arizona, Georgia, Texas, Pennsylvania, and Michigan in recent weeks. Documents posted on Ayotte's website show the agency is pursuing additional acquisitions in New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, and Georgia.
Communities are already rallying against the plan and questioning whether the small towns ICE has selected have sufficient water and sewer infrastructure to support thousands of people detained in a warehouse.
In New York, Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY) said last week that 25,000 people in his district have signed a petition opposing the use of a local warehouse to house immigrants and pointed to the "major corruption and graft" evident in the plan to purchase and run the warehouses.
"The site in my district that's proposed is owned by one of Trump's multibillionaire donors, who would directly financially benefit from this site," said Ryan, referring to former Trump adviser Carl Icahn.
“I’m telling you, we are not going to let this happen in my district.”@PatRyanUC is pushing back on the Trump administration’s plan to buy warehouses across the country to turn them into mass detention centers, including one in his New York district. pic.twitter.com/KYOQb4WJx6
— The Recount (@therecount) February 5, 2026
As Common Dreams reported Friday, private prison firm GEO Group raked in a record $254 million in profits last year as it secured contracts with the Trump administration to build new ICE facilities across the US.
ICE has attempted to make purchases in Oklahoma City; Kansas City, Missouri; and in Virginia, but those plans have fallen through, with the Kansas City Council passing a five-year ban on new nonmunicipal detention centers after the public learned that DHS was the potential buyer of a warehouse in the city.
Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has also joined his constituents in speaking out against ICE's $100 million purchase of a warehouse in his state to house at least 1,000 people at a time.
"This administration is spitting in the face of communities from Minneapolis to Maryland and wasting our tax dollars. We won't back down," said Van Hollen late last month.
The details of the administration's planned conversion of warehouses were reported less than two weeks after Pablo Manríquez of Migrant Insider revealed that a US Navy contract originally valued at $10 billion "has ballooned to a staggering $55 billion ceiling to expedite President Donald Trump’s ‘mass deportation’ agenda" and to help build "a sprawling network of migrant detention centers across the US."
At Common Dreams last week, talk show host and author Thom Hartmann wrote that the warehouses Trump plans to use to hold people—purchased by an agency whose own data shows it has largely been detaining people with no criminal records—are best described as concentration camps like those used in Nazi Germany.
"By the end of his first year, [Adolf] Hitler had around 50,000 people held in his roughly 70 concentration camps, facilities that were often improvised in factories, prisons, castles, and other buildings," wrote Hartmann. "By comparison, today ICE is holding over 70,000 people in 225 concentration camps across America," with hopes to "more than double both numbers in the coming months."
"Germany’s concentration camps didn’t start as instruments of mass murder, and neither have ours; both started as facilities for people the government’s leader said were a problem. And that’s exactly what ICE is building now," he continued. "History isn’t whispering its warning: It’s shouting."
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