(The Center Square) – The Council on Social Work Education refused to oblige medical watchdog Do No Harm’s May letter that requested the accreditor remove diversity, equity, and inclusion requirements from its accreditation standards that Do No Harm sees as…
Image courtesy Bruce Botelho
Recent federal immigration enforcement events in Juneau, mirrored in small towns and big cities across America, bring to mind the musical Fiddler on the Roof and the fictional shtetl of Anatevka in early 20th century Russia. There, villagers eke out an existence largely isolated from the political currents of the outside world, hoping to be ignored by distant rulers whose policies could upend their lives. At one point the village rabbi is asked whether there is a proper blessing for the Tsar. He replies: “Of course. . . May God bless and keep the Tsar . . . far away from us!” Unfortunately, the Tsar’s regime does come for them, ordering all Jews to be expelled from Anatevka.
President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown has emphasized detention, expedited removal and sharply curtailed avenues for asylum or humanitarian relief against people with no meaningful political voice who are trying to survive under a regime that sees them as expendable or suspect. And now the Tsar has come to Juneau.
Juneau is a close-knit community. Our residents are passionate about many things and, being a government town of sorts, we particularly argue over politics. But we also recognize that much of what Juneau is today was built by foreign labor: in the mines, the canneries and all manner of enterprise. And when we encounter a health care worker who happens to be from Haiti, or a construction worker who is Guatemalan, or a chef who is Mexican or a handyman from Ukraine, we don’t ask them for their identity papers. They are our neighbors and we judge them for their willingness to work, their competence and their desire to belong.
We can readily accept the idea of removing “the worst of the worst,” but these are not the people who are disappearing from our streets. Being “undocumented” is now a crime. A young man from Peru with a wife and special-needs child was removed from the community after being arrested and charged with refusal to take a breathalyzer test‚ removed well before his state court trial date — or an Ecuadorian arrested for driving with a broken headlight and without a valid license, leading to an ICE detainer order and his ultimate removal from the country. Nearly an entire Haitian community was compelled to leave after repeated text threats from ICE that said “we will find you” after prematurely terminating their temporary protected status. In recent days a visitor from Mexico with a valid visa was boxed in by two black SUVs as he tried to exit the parking lot of our local Fred Meyers store. The vehicle was searched and, because nothing was found and his papers were “in order,” he was released.
Not surprisingly, these interventions cause panic, not just among the undocumented, but any residents who are foreign-born or who are awaiting actions on asylum or permanent residency applications. The Trump administration has intentionally slow-rolled these actions, leaving many in a regulatory purgatory. Everyday decisions now become real-time risk assessments: Do I accompany my children to school? Is it safe to go shopping? Should I forgo needed surgery in Anchorage because I might be detained at the airport?
In recent days there has been a new twist. Recreational boaters that I know have been stopped on the water by agents on small Coast Guard vessels who demand identification from all on board “for security checks.” These are not the typical safety checks that the Coast Guard regularly provides. It is a more ominous development whose on-land equivalent is randomly pulling over a car on a public highway and demanding to see identifications of all passengers.
A dear friend recently sent a screenshot of a street sign in Philadelphia that captures the horror we are allowing to play out in our country without halt: “Somewhere in America, a little girl is hiding in an attic, writing about I.C.E.” This nation should choose a different path, one that resists gratuitous cruelty and insists on due process and basic humanity.
The incidents referred to in this commentary are recalled firsthand by the author as part of his immigration advocacy work.
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According to polls, only four to 32% of Americans trust their legislators in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. If you are one of those in that minority, it makes perfect sense for you to vote “yes” to get rid of ranked choice voting. But if you aren’t in that minority and want a better chance to elect qualified and honorable people to represent us, please vote “no” on Ballot 2.
By voting “no,”…
In a small town like Haines, where shopping is limited, and prices are so high, free piles are good.
We are limited to where we can donate good items. Recycling goods helps out a lot of people.
It’s a great way to recycle used items that would otherwise end up going to the landfill. Thank you,
Dixie Hayes
The post Free piles a boon in Haines appeared first on Chilkat Valley News.
Generous donations are funding great things at the Haines pool. If you haven’t stopped in since the pool reopened July 1, check it out.
Thanks to the Chilkat Valley Community Foundation, three new floating swim mats are helping new swimmers learn to be comfortable in the water.
Also, community members have donated dozens of free swims for their neighbors. And one-use disposable swim diapers are also available gratis, again thanks to our local community foundation.
Thank you for a great fair this year. In the past, I worked in the barn a lot and all we had were a few chickens and rabbits. This year the food was great, and the Indian fried-bread tacos were the best. The barn was really great with all the new pens for the chickens, ducks, rabbits, pigs and turkeys. The pig race and dog parade were the best of all. Thanks a lot!
Mary…
Here we are again, Alaska.
We still lead the country in proving how voting could work — and our ranked-choice voting system gives independent politics a real fighting chance. A two-party, winner-take-all system ensures that each side has every reason to demonize the other.
With ranked-choice voting, parties are incentivized to work with each other and cross lines to court independent thinking and swing voters, not just the base. This matters. In 2022, more than…
Volunteers are circulating a ballot initiative petition this week to reduce the senior
property tax exemption from $300,000 to $200,000.
Reducing this exemption is necessary in order for our government to fully fund essential
services without depleting our town’s savings. If 297 signatures are gathered by Aug. 12, voters will have the opportunity to decide this matter in the October municipal election.
A Haines voter initiative in 2024 that increased the senior property tax exemption…
My motto was “Fill the Barn” and we did just that for the 2026 Southeast Alaska State Fair. It wasn’t just me though. I wish there was room here to print the names on my list of more than 60 people who joined in the fun of building pens, hutches, cages, painted fences, and cared for the animals, as well as those who sponsored this project, and the animal owners who trusted us with their…
Fired federal workers formerly with the U.S. Forest Service based at the Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau speak at the Alaska State Capito; on March 21, 2025, about their experiences. The Forest Service was among the federal agencies in Alaska most heavily affected by job cuts. (Photo by Corinne Smith/Alaska Beacon)
Alaska lost a higher percentage of its federal workforce last year than almost all U.S. states to sweeping Trump administration cuts, according to a newly published analysis by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development.
By the end of 2025, Alaska’s federal workforce was 10.5% smaller than it had been at the end of the prior year, according to the analysis, published in Alaska Economic Trends, the monthly magazine of the department’s research section. In the fourth quarter of 2025, after many workers accepted buyouts or early retirement, the state’s federal workforce had dropped by 1,607 from the total in the fourth quarter of 2024, to 13,767 from 15,374 the year prior, according to the analysis.
The job losses came through mass firings and cuts made by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the government-reducing campaign led by trillionaire Elon Musk that started shortly after Donald Trump took office for his second term. To a large extent, job losses were concentrated at the end of the year.
Calculated by the annual average, Alaska lost about 4.5% of its federal jobs in 2025. Only Maryland, which lost 6.5% of its federal jobs, and New Mexico, which lost 5.8% of its federal jobs, lost more.
Federal job losses reduced Alaska’s total earnings by $36.5 million on average in 2025, according to the Department of Labor and Workforce Development analysis, and they brought federal employment in Alaska to the lowest level since at least 1990.
Much of the cutting in Alaska came in the U.S. Department of Defense’s civilian workforce. Calculated by annual average, 340 defense related jobs were lost to the DOGE cuts, but the fourth-quarter loss was calculated at 755 jobs.
The large amount of job losses in the Department of Defense category was a bit surprising, said Karinne Wiebold, the state labor economist who wrote the Trends article. “I assumed early on that the DoD might be one of the less affected departments and that our strong military presence might insulate us,” she said by email.
Federal agencies that sustained high numbers of job losses included the U.S. Forest Service, which had 180 fewer employees at the end of 2025 than in late 2024, the Bureau of Land Management, which had lost 133 jobs at the end of the year, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which had lost 101 of its workers by the end of 2025.
Job losses in the Forest Service and NOAA have affected important Alaska industries and services, including fishery science, weather forecasting, scientific research and tourism.
The fallout from the job losses continues, and the public does not yet have a complete picture, Wiebold said. “I do think the public is aware of the federal job losses and that they have been deep and a bit unpredictable,” she said. “I don’t know if the public generally understands what the ramifications of the cuts will be — federal employees perform a wide variety of oftentimes highly specialized work.”
Certain parts of the state were harder hit than others. The Southeast Fairbanks Census Area, which has been reliant on military-related employment, and parts of Southeast Alaska, where employment related to the Tongass National Forest is important, are among those regions with steeper job losses by percentage, according to the analysis.
Alaska’s ranking among states hit by DOGE-related job cuts could change, Wiebold said. Data from this year has yet to be fully analyzed, she said. “Even in the first parts of 2026, there are reports of the rankings shifting somewhat,” she said.
