Federal Government

Some storefront owners in Juneau spoke out against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement or shuttered their doors Friday as part of the nationwide general strike following recent killings in Minneapolis. 

Downtown, small businesses including Drip Drop Wonder Shop, Liaise Studio and Alaska Robotics Gallery closed, joining businesses across the country protesting ICE. 

Aaron Suring is co-owner of Alaska Robotics Gallery, a game and book shop. He said he participated in the strike because he wants to see ICE defunded. 

“There’s limited things that we can do so far away from what’s happening in Minneapolis, and we wanted to show our support in what way we could,” he said. 

He said he thinks joining the nationwide response can raise awareness and lead to action. Across the country, people are refraining from attending school, going to work or spending money in solidarity with those impacted by ICE. 

Some Juneau stores that remained open took a stance against ICE in other ways. 

Kindred Post, a gift shop and post office downtown, posted on social media that 25% of its revenue between Friday and Sunday will be donated to the International Rescue Committee in support of immigrants and refugees. 

Travis Smith, co-owner of The Rookery Cafe and In Bocca al Lupo, said he decided to keep the restaurants open because he can’t afford to close. But he encouraged patrons to pay in cash. 

“We’re going to basically take what would have been the credit card processing fees that we’re not paying, since people are paying in cash, and then we’re going to match that amount as a donation,” he said. 

He said that will amount to 6% of their sales from the day, which they plan to donate to funds on Stand With Minnesota, a directory aimed at supporting people impacted by ICE in the state. 

“The reality is that our businesses both rely upon immigrants, our communities are built on them,” he said. 

Smith called the ICE raids “atrocious” and said the U.S. should not allow masked officers to kill people. 

Across the street, a chalkboard sign stands in front of Bustin’ Out Boutique.

“It says, ‘fight fascism, not your bra.’ We’re just a full-service bra-fitting store,” said Hollis Kitchin, owner of the boutique. She said she’s been using the sign to speak out against the current administration since President Donald Trump’s inauguration last year. 

She said she couldn’t afford to close for the day, but set up a snack and tea station in her shop to create a welcoming space for protestors. 

Kitchin said she’s a descendant of people who immigrated to the U.S. to escape fascism before World War II and the issue is close to her heart. 

“I have friends in Minnesota that are afraid to leave their houses because they’re not white, they’re carrying their passports and stuff with them,” she said. “It’s just disturbing and horrifying.”

The response from local business owners comes after organizers hosted an anti-ICE rally Thursday and a recent vigil remembering Alex Pretti and Renee Good Sunday. Another anti-ICE is planned for Friday evening starting at 5 p.m. at the whale statue. 

Correction: This story has been updated to correct when Hollis Kitchin’s family migrated. 

More than 200 people gathered in the capital city Thursday to speak out against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, following recent killings of two citizens in Minneapolis. 

Juneau resident Denali Marin organized the noon rally outside the courthouse, where protestors brought salt and chanted, “Melt ICE.” 

Marin listed some of the people who have lost their lives at the hands of ICE officers, including U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Dozens of others have died while in custody in recent months. 

“I want to be very clear about what we’re asking for today, not vague statements, not calls to lower the temperature and not investigations that lead to nowhere,” she said into a microphone on the plaza steps. “Today, I’m calling on our national leaders to act.”

She and other speakers at the event called for leaders to defund ICE and impeach Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. 

On Thursday, seven U.S. Senate Republicans joined Senate Democrats to block a funding bill that would have included $10 billion for ICE. Senators Dan Sullivan and Lisa Murkowski were not among those Republicans; instead they voted in favor of the funding bill. But Murkowski said this week that Noem should resign.

Local advocate Ariel Hasse-Zamudio encouraged attendees to call Alaska’s congressional delegation. 

“Dan Sullivan, Lisa Murkowski, Nick Begich, we need to call them and hold them accountable,” she said. 

Emma Sulczynski, a student at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, took the microphone to urge people to get involved in other ways. 

“There is a nationwide strike — strike on going to school, going to work, and on spending,” she said, referring to the national anti-ICE strike planned for Friday. “You don’t have to do all of these things, but whatever is accessible for you, please stand in solidarity with the brave people in Minneapolis and in the rest of our country who are resisting day and night.”

She also urged people to boycott corporations that support ICE.

WASHINGTON — Sen. Lisa Murkowski said Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem should be held accountable over a fierce immigration crackdown that has killed two citizens in Minneapolis and that she should resign.

“She has — through her words, and I think in her actions — she’s taken a direction that has not been helpful to the situation, and I don’t think that it helps the country,” Murkowski told reporters.

She said Noem has an obligation to maintain control of what the agencies in her jurisdiction are doing. Instead, Murkowski said, Noem has inflamed tensions. She noted that almost immediately after Border Patrol agents shot and killed nurse Alex Pretti, Noem claimed, without evidence, that Pretti was a “domestic terrorist.”

Murkowski spoke to reporters on her way to a Senate vote as lawmakers returned to the Capitol from a week away. She called it a good sign that the administration has removed top Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino from Minneapolis. But, she said, accountability rests with Noem.

Reporters pressed her on whether Noem should resign.

“I voted for her,” Murkowski said, referring to Noem’s Senate confirmation. “I think the President needs to look at who he has in place as a secretary of Homeland Security. I would not support her again, and I think it probably is time for her to step down.”

Murkowski was among the first Republicans in Congress to openly criticize the tactics of the immigration enforcement operation after agents killed Pretti. The group of GOP critics remains small.

But minutes before Murkowski spoke, Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., also castigated Noem. He said the enforcement operations need to focus on the serious criminals President Trump promised to target and not pursue nonviolent people.

“I think that what she’s done in Minnesota should be disqualifying. She should be out of a job,” Tillis said of Noem. “And I mean, really, it’s just amateurish. It’s terrible. It’s making the president look bad on policies that he won on.”

Tillis is retiring from the Senate after his term ends in a year. He’s become one of the more outspoken Republicans in Congress when it comes to criticizing and voting against the Trump administration.

Unlike Murkowski and Tillis, Sen. Dan Sullivan, R-Alaska, didn’t issue a social statement or a press release this weekend to condemn Pretti’s death or call for reform.

His office provided a statement to reporters on request. Sen. Sullivan “strongly supports our law enforcement and their ability to do their jobs,” it says, while calling any loss of life tragic. It also says he hopes that “the temperature in Minnesota on both sides can be lowered.”

On his way to the Senate chamber to vote Tuesday, Sullivan held his phone to his ear as he walked through a crowd of reporters, fending off approaches.

The federal government is reviewing a business program that brings contracting opportunities to Alaska Native corporations and tribes.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said in a video posted on X Jan. 16 that his department will review the 8(a) Business Development Program. The program falls under the federal Small Business Administration and supports businesses owned by socially disadvantaged individuals or tribal entities, including Alaska Native corporations.

Hegseth said in the video that the program promotes diversity, equity, and inclusion framework and race-based contracting.

“We are taking a sledgehammer to the oldest DEI program in the federal government,” Hegseth said. “Our goal is to spend your money to build our defense industrial base with businesses, large and small, that share our mission.”

Quinton Carroll, the executive director of the Native American Contractors Association, originally from Utqiaġvik, said that Native participation in the program is not a diversity, equity and inclusion initiative.

“It is grounded in the unique political and legal status of tribal nations under U.S. law and fulfills longstanding federal trust and treaty obligations to tribes, Alaska Native Corporations and Native Hawaiian Organizations,” Carroll said.

Tribal participation in the program

Alaska Native Corporations rely heavily on federal contracts, which they often secure through the 8(a) program.

In 2021, corporations received more than $11 billion from federal contracts, which were their primary source of revenue, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. More than a half of that revenue came through the 8(a) program, and the majority of those contracts were with the Department of Defense, according to that research.

Christopher Slottee, an attorney who ‎works with Alaska Native villages, regional corporations and tribal governments, said that makes the Pentagon’s review of the program “a significant concern” for tribes and corporations.

“They often rely on those contracts to generate the revenue that lets them provide the benefits to their shareholders and tribal members,” he said.

Slottee said that tribal entities are subject to the same standards, reviews and compliance requirements as everyone else, but they do have a few advantages in the program.

Slottee said tribal entities, unlike individuals, don’t have to prove their social disadvantage. They can also have multiple companies in the program, while individuals can only have one. Plus, tribal entities have significantly higher limits for certain awards, he said.

Slottee said a government agency also might want to contract with an Alaska Native organization because they often have more experience than some of the traditional small businesses. And there are treaty obligations to fulfill, he added.

“There is a general, government-wide encouragement for agencies to contract with entities owned by tribes and ANCs, as part of the government’s responsibility to Alaska Natives and Native Americans,” he said.

The DoD review of the program 

Hegseth ordered a line-by-line review of 8(a) contracts that are over $20 million in value. He said in a memorandum to the Pentagon leadership that the department would get rid of contracts that don’t make the country’s military more lethal.

“We have no room in our budget for wasteful DEI contracts that don’t help us win wars,” he said in the social media video.

Carroll, with the Native American Contractors Association, said that Native federal contractors have been partners of the Department of Defense, working to strengthen readiness and the military industrial base.

Hegseth also said the department would make sure that the businesses with contracts were actually doing the work. He claimed that small businesses often receive a contract, take a fee and then pass the job on to a larger firm that’s not eligible for the program.

In June, the Small Business Administration ordered an audit of the 8(a) program following a fraud investigation. The Treasury Department has also been looking into potential misuse of the program.

Carroll said Native contractors support the elimination of fraud and waste within the program.

“It is critical that oversight efforts preserve a program that has proven its value — strengthening national security, reinforcing the defense industrial base, and supporting economic growth in Native and surrounding communities,” Carroll said.

Other threats to the program

The 8(a) program has faced recent scrutiny from other directions as well.

President Trump signed an executive order in April directing the rewriting of federal contracting regulations. Slottee, the attorney, said the revision has been completed, but it’s not clear yet how the changes will affect tribal entities.

He said that there is more focus now on the use of larger contracts, which can be harder for smaller corporations and tribes to access.

“It’s going to take a little bit for folks to actually see the kind of on-the-ground downstream impact, but we definitely anticipate seeing that in the course of 2026,” Slottee said.

Earlier this month, the Small Business Administration issued an announcement that, among other things, described a massive reduction in how many applications were approved for the program.

“The Trump SBA accepted just 65 new 8(a) firms into the program last year – compared to over 2,100 who were accepted during the Biden Administration,” it said.

Slottee said that the many Native-owned businesses felt that reduction.

“There is a concern that ANCs and tribes will have to start looking for alternatives,” he said. “If the SBA is not going to be approving new 8(a) applications, even though they should be under the rule established by Congress, that’s going to be a downstream impact on ANCs and tribes.”

Alaska U.S. House Rep. Nick Begich III has a new challenger.

Bill Hill, a Bristol Bay fisherman and retired teacher and school administrator, filed to run for the congressional seat as an independent candidate.

He cites the late Alaska Congressman Don Young as an inspiration.

“That’s kind of who I hope to, in some respect, mold myself after,” he said. “What’s good for Alaskans first and, you know, we need to start putting distance between politicians that are just cozying up to billionaires and special interests. And we need people that are going to work for Alaskans.”

A day after launching, Hill’s campaign announced he’d raised $200,000.

Hill has retained the campaign consulting firm Ship Creek Group, the same agency that brought early success for Mary Peltola when she launched her bid for U.S. House in the 2022 special primary election.

If elected, Hill isn’t committing to joining either the Republican or the Democratic House caucuses.

“I think that decision needs to be done thoughtfully, and that needs to be done at the appropriate time with whatever the structure of Congress looks like at that time,” he said.

Public records show he made small donations last year, through the ActBlue platform, to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and larger ones to Democrat Les Gara for his campaign in 2022 for Alaska governor.

Hill is Athabaskan, raised on Lake Iliamna and now lives in Naknek. He worked as a teacher in Naknek and Juneau, an administrator in the Lake and Peninsula School District and as superintendent of the Bristol Bay district. He’s also lived in Fairbanks and worked in construction jobs and ran a small business.

Begich, a freshman Republican, has raised more than $2 million for his re-election campaign. Democrat Matt Schultz, a Presbyterian minister from Anchorage, is also campaigning for the seat. He hasn’t had to file a fundraising report yet.

Former Alaska Congresswoman Mary Peltola will be in Juneau Friday evening at the Crystal Saloon bar downtown to celebrate her campaign launch for U.S. Senate. 

Last week, she announced she’s running for U.S. Senate against Republican incumbent Senator Dan Sullivan. 

Peltola, a Democrat, served both a partial and full term in the U.S. House until the 2024 election, when she narrowly lost her seat to Republican Nick Begich. She became the first Alaska Native person elected to Congress when she won the 2022 special election.

Peltola has historically seen strong support from Juneau. During the 2024 election, Peltola outpaced Begich in every Juneau precinct – even in the precincts from the Juneau International Airport to Mendenhall Valley that went for Trump, according to the Alaska Division of Elections.

Her bid for the congressional seat, if successful, would give Democrats a shot at winning a majority in the Senate.

Her meet and greet will be at the Crystal Saloon on Front Street, Friday evening from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.