JOIN AND BE PART OF A 14 DAYS TOUR WITH 3 KEY REPRESENTATIVES FROM THE FRONTLINES RESISTANCE AGAINST ICE IN MINNESOTA!
Objectives
- Expose and roll back European investments into the ICE system (Palantir, Geo Group, Corecivic) and the largest US fossil fuel expansion firms (Exxon, Enbridge).
- Connect europeans groups and organizations with the Minnesota resistance to ICE and fossil fuel expansion.
- Contribute to a unified response to the offensive of the far right in Europe and abroad, and prepare the resistance to strike back Trump’s administration for November 2026 half-mandate elections in the US.
Context
Two activists from Minnesota are coming to Switzerland, France and Nederlands from April 14th to 29th to share their experiences, expose the Swiss financial sector’s connection with ICE’s main contractors, and help build a broad coalition of organizations linking the struggles ahead in the United States and here.
ICE’s violence in the United States has caused outrage and a large people powered pushback. The massive, nonviolent resistance movement is inspiring. The international rise of the far right is a major cause for concern. The resistance of the residents of Minneapolis and Saint Paul shows that organized resistance works.
We are also affected here in Europe. On the one hand, because the far right is powerful here, mobilizing around issues similar to Trump’s: notably against immigration, for the dismantling of public services, and for anti-climate policies. This influence is evident in the European Parliament’s recent decision to tighten the EU’s migration policy by establishing “return hubs”: centers located outside Europe’s borders to detain and expel migrants. These hubs echo Trump’s hardline approach to immigration, outsourcing responsibility and human rights violations to third countries while further militarizing borders. On the other hand, because European investors, such as UBS, the Swiss National Bank, or Amundi, are involved in financing companies working for ICE [BreakFree]. They also finance expansionist oil companies such as ExxonMobil, which are carrying out Trump’s strategy for global energy domination. Together, these policies and investments deepen inequality, fuel climate destruction, and perpetuate systems of oppression that disproportionately harm marginalized communities in Europe and beyond.
We invite human rights organisations, climate action groups, social justice advocates, anti-fascists, immigrant support groups, international solidarity organisations, unions, political parties, and all concerned individuals to join the tour’s activities (see below the full agenda).
Why these countries? Why Now?
Switzerland’s financial hubs (Zurich and Geneva), are not just global centers of wealth management; they act as key enablers of authoritarian repression. Institutions like UBS and the Swiss National Bank (whose annual general meetings are scheduled for April 15th and 24th, 2026) channel billions into companies like Palantir, GEO Group, and AT&T, which power ICE’s mass surveillance, detention, and deportation machine. These investments are not neutral: they directly fund racial profiling, militarized policing, and the erosion of democratic rights in the U.S., tactics that, once normalized, inevitably spread globally.
Palantir’s aggressive pursuit of Swiss contracts and its legal threats against investigative journalism (such as its lawsuit against Republik for exposing its activities) reveal a company determined to silence criticism and expand its reach. As Republik documented, Palantir has tenaciously courted Swiss authorities, seeking to embed its surveillance tools in European governance. Meanwhile, Swiss financial flows to fossil fuel giants, which lobby for anti-protest laws and fund authoritarian regimes, further tie Switzerland, and Europe, to a global system of repression and ecological destruction (SOMO).
The bonds between resistance movements in the U.S. and Europe must be strengthened because authoritarianism and repression do not respect borders. When Swiss banks finance ICE’s operations, they are not only complicit in the suffering of migrants and activists in the U.S.; they are also laying the groundwork for similar systems of control in Europe. The same surveillance technologies tested on migrants and protesters in Minnesota and Gaza are already being marketed to European police and border agencies. The same anti-protest laws lobbied for by fossil fuel giants in the U.S. are inspiring crackdowns on climate and social justice movements across Europe.
If we allow financial elites in Switzerland and beyond to profit from repression abroad, we risk importing those same tactics home. By resisting together, we can cut off the flow of capital to authoritarian projects, defend democratic spaces, and ensure that the fight for justice in the U.S. strengthens, rather than undermines, our struggles in Europe.
14th of April - Public Event Carambolage
Discussion with the delegation – Le Carambolage 7pm
15th of April - AGM UBS - Basel
9 am. St. Jakobshalle, St. Jakobs-Strasse, 390 – Basel. Place and activities to be announced.
AGM starts at 10:30 am.
15th of April - Public Event UZH
Public event – Sharing with the delegates at UZH – Room XX 6:30 pm
16th of April - Public meeting in Zürich
Time and place. TBA
18th of April - Conference at Stop Pillage
15H00 – 16H30 STOP PILLAGE PÔLE SUD LAUSANNE
S’opposer au financement suisse de l’ICE et à l’expansionnisme fossile de Trump
RAFAEL GONZALES « TUFAWON », artiste hip hop et activiste autochtone, Minneapolis (USA) – JANETTE CORCELIUS, syndicaliste à la Fédération des Travailleurs de Minneapolis et militante de DSA –
DANIEL STERN, journaliste WOZ
20th of April - Workshop Geneva
LUNDI 20 AVRIL 2026 A 20H
Table-ronde
COMBATTRE LE RACISME: REVENDICATIONS ET PRATIQUES
SYNDICALES POUR UNE MEILLEURE DÉFENSE DES TRAVAILLEURSEUSES MIGRANTE.S, RACIALISÉ.E.S ET/OU SANS STATUT LÉGAL
L’actualité aux HUG rappelle une réalité persistante : le racisme, qu’il soit quotidien ou structurel, demeure bien présent. Dans un contexte international marqué par la montée de discours réactionnaires et racistes, la lutte antiraciste doit retrouver une place centrale, y compris dans le
monde du travail et au sein de l’action syndicale.
C’est dans cette perspective que les syndicats SIT et SSP, avec l’association BreakFree, organisent une table ronde à l’occasion de la venue en Suisse de Janette Zahia Corcelius, syndicaliste engagée aux États-Unis contre les politiques racistes et anti-migration de Trump ainsi que contre les violences de l’ICE.
Cette rencontre permettra de discuter des enjeux actuels de la lutte antiraciste dans le monde du travail, du soutien aux travailleuses et travailleurs sans statut légal, ainsi que du rôle des syndicats dans la construction de résistances concrètes face aux discriminations. avec Janette Zahia Corcelius syndicaliste et militante antiraciste à Minneapolis, Etats-Unis.
21st of April - Concert at l'Ecurie with Dr. Koul
Concert at l’Ecurie with Dr. Koul
14 Rue de Montbrillant
22nd of April - Meeting in Geneva
Meeting Salle du Faubourg
19h-22h – 6 terreaux du temple
BreakFree Suisse, SIT, SSP, Le Courrier, collectif AfroSwiss, Solidarités Tattes, Les Ecosocialistes
xx of April - online press conference
Time and Place TBA
media contacts get invited
23rd of April - Concert at La Jonquille
Av. de Sainte-Clotilde 18BIS, 21h – 22h- Performance from Tufawon at La Jonquille
24th of April - AGM of SNB in Bern
join the demonstration in front of Kursaal Bern (Kornhausstrasse 3) at 10:00 am
Shared gathering
25th of April - Paris
29th - Amsterdam
Photo credits: Lorie Shaull
Rafael Gonzalez (Tufawon)
Dakota and Boricua rapper, singer songwriter, producer and teaching artist from Minneapolis. He’s spent years community organizing and touring the world. The most current fight against that ICE occupation in Minneapolis has kept Tufawon actively engaged in his community as he helps with mutual aid efforts, protesting, community patrolling, and using his music platform as a vehicle to speak out against fascism.
He was awarded the Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship a few years ago, one of his biggest achievements. He participated in the inaugural First Nations SongHubs and recorded with Indigenous artists from around the globe at the Abbey Road Institute in Melbourne, Australia. He was featured on the Breakfast Club and Hot 97 Ebro In The Morning speaking on issues that impact Native communities.
He completed his first headlining tour in Europe “Resilience” with Nataanii Means. He actively stood in solidarity with the Black community during the 2020 Uprising after George Floyd was murdered by the MPD, and helped protect the Native Corridor from being looted in South Minneapolis. Delegate from the Indigenous Protectors Movement and member of Minneapolis ICE Watch, he was actively engaged in his community as he helps with mutual aid efforts, protesting, community patrolling, and using his music platform as a vehicle to speak out. He was also been very active few years ago with the No/DAPL struggle at Standing Rock (North Dakota) and with the Stop Line 3 movement in Minnesota, speaking at the United Nations in Switzerland, he continues to carry out his message and impact the people in a powerful way, calling to stop the fossil fuel industry massive damages on land and Indigenous people.
Useful links:
(2) https://www.instagram.com/tufawon/
Janette Zahia Corcelius
Janette Zahia Corcelius is a union organizer and community organizer in Minneapolis, Minnesota. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota. She is a member of the Office and Professionals Employees International Union, local 12 which has 2,000 members across several states where she serves as a steward and a delegate. She is also a member of the largest socialist organization in the United States – The Democratic Socialists of America – which is a multi-tendency, big tent socialist organization with 100,000 members. She is also a member The Tempest Collective which is a revolutionary socialist cadre organization and The Remember 1934 Collective which serves to commemorate the great Minneapolis Truckers’ Strike of 1934 and its relevance in today’s labor movement.
